Unfortunately, paremiologists have so far only some vague ideas of the functions of proverbs. ""Moreover, the proverb lies just somewhere on the borderlands between language and folklore, and shares its functions with both of them, and one cannot say there is a notable agreement between the conceptioris of different authors on the functions of language or folklore, neither is there a notable unity in the terminology used by different authors who have written on these matters. We accept here a more simple and widespread scale, namely the set of three degrees:
Statement → evaluation → prescription
We suppose, however, this scale should fit in with the nature of the proverb, and it has, incidentally, the virtues that it operates with concepts general enough, and allows to consider the set of its subfunctions (or functional aspects) as a unified system. The functional aspects mentioned are in certain relationship with grammatical moods of the sentence. Hence the illusion may arise that proverbs can be classified functionally straight on the ground of their "superficial" grammatical moods, so that the proverbs with stating (designative, informative) function were represented with indicative sentences, and