Talk:Subjunctive mood/Archive 2

The subjunctive suffixes in Old, Middle, and Modern English regular verbs (Table)
It appears the Old English Past Tense Plural ending, shown in the table as "-d-on" is incorrect for the subjunctive. "-d-on" is the Past Indicative. The correct Past Subjunctive should be "-d-en". Is there any way to correct this wrength? Leasnam (talk) 21:52, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Language Nesting
It seems a bit weird (and somewhat culturally insensitive) to have separate headings for IE languages, then on the same level for Germanic, Celtic etc., and then to have a same-level heading for semitic languages. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to include all the IE language groups under IE, then a similar multi-level structure for Semitic languages (with Hebrew and Arabic separately listed beneath), and finally "Other" with Hungarian? I could understand some special status for English (this is an article _in_ English), but I don't see why that should carry over to a special status for all IE languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Urilabob (talk • contribs) 08:35, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I've changed the heading to "Proto-Indo-European" as it doesn't discuss the daughter languages in detail. Count Truthstein (talk) 19:39, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Lists of phrases
I've deleted the long lists of subjunctive phrases in English, as they weren't suitable for this article, which is about the subjunctive crosslinguistically. Even in the article on the specifically English subjunctive they wouldn't really be appropriate, as the article should be something other than an editor's favorite uses of the subjunctive. The deleted sections also contained some inappropriate editorializing. Ergative rlt (talk) 19:48, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Hungarian "subjunctive"
Is there any evidence for the claims made about Hungarian? As a native speaker I find it strange to be told that we don't have a subjunctive/conditional mood as distinct from the imperative/jussive mood.

Hungarian has three moods: Indicative (kijelentő mód - exclamatory, or annountive mood); Conditional/subjtunctive (often just called conditional; in Hungarian feltételes mód - conditional mood; refered to hereafter as N-mood owing to the characteristic -n- infix); and jussive/imperative (a.k.a. subjunctive, imperatuve, or jussive; in Hungarian felszólító mód - adressing mood; referred to here as J-mood owing tot he characteristic -j- infix).

Although the J-mood, which the article currently treats as the Hungarian subjunctive, can be used in some circumstances which would normally be reserved for subjunctive or conditional in IE languages, and it expresses a range desires from wish to command, it does not perform most of the roles of either conditional or subjunctive which is handled by the N-mood.

N-mood handles constructs such as:

subjunctive-conditional constructs "if I were rich, I would be happy" - "ha gazdag lennék, boldog lennék.

polite commands "would you do something for me?" - "megtennél nekem valamit?"

and some desires "if only I had money" - "ha csak lenne pénzem"

J-mood handles:

direct commands "put it down" - "tegyed le"

indirect commands "he['d better] go to work - "menjen dolgozni"

reported commands "he told me to go" / he told me that I must go - "azt mondta, hogy menjek"

Suggestions - "let's go" - "menjünk"; "in my oppinion let's go" - "szerintem menjünk" (these would be considered commands) or "should I go?" "menjek?" (used only in questions)

some desires "[I want it] not to rain tomorrow" - "ne essen honap az eső" (this falls under indirect command)

subordinate clauses of desire "I want that it doesnt rain" - "azt akarom, hogy ne essen"

subordinate clauses of obligation "it is obligatory that I go" - "kötelező, hogy menjek"

I would therefore argue, that the N-mood is more analoguous to subjunctive and conditional moods in IE languages, and the J-mood is closer to imperative

The benevolent dictator (talk) 09:58, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

If you were to be here, I would dance with you (??)
I think there is something wrong with the subjunctive examples for events in the future. For past and present events, I agree with:
 * If you had been here, I would have danced with you.
 * If you were here, I would dance with you.

However, for a future event, shouldn't it be
 * If you are here, I will dance with you.

rather than
 * If you were to be here, I would dance with you.

Thanks — Q uantling (talk &#124; contribs) 16:10, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Futuro de subjuntivo in Spanish

 * Phrases expressing the subjunctive in a future period normally employ the present subjunctive. For example: "I hope that it will rain tomorrow" would simply be "Espero que llueva mañana" (where llueva is the third-person singular present subjunctive of llover, "to rain"). The future subjunctive form of the verb would have been "lloviere".

The last sentence is wrong, in my opinion. "Espero que llueva mañana" (I hope that tomorrow will rain) is correct. The future subjunctive is a hypothetical future. A good example of the use of this tense would be "Si mañana lloviere, no iríamos a la playa": if tomorrow would rain, we wouldn't go to the beach. The verb in the main sentence is a conditional. In everyday speach the future subjunctive is replaced by the past subjective: "Si mañana lloviera, no iríamos a la playa". Purely hypothetical; we can just as well pack our swimming suits and the tanning lotion. Compare with "Si mañana llueve, no vamos la playa" (the verb in the main sentence is in the indicative mood). Rain is a distinct possibility; better think of an alternative indoor activity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.93.203.156 (talk) 19:32, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Latin
The article says "The Latin subjunctive is mostly made of optative forms, while some of the original subjunctive forms went to make the Latin future tense, especially in the Latin third conjugation."

I'm no expert, but surely it's the other way round? The basic difference in I-E is that the subjunctive simply lengthens the theme vowel, while the optative adds a -y- to it. On that basis, the first conjugation subjunctive, "amem, ames, amet", and the forms for esse, "sim, sis, sit", are indeed optative; but in the other conjugations the future (regam, reges, reget; audiam, audies, audiet) sounds optative while the subjunctive (moneam, moneas, moneat; regam, regas, regat; audiam, audias, audiat) sounds like a true subjunctive. Can anyone cast any light on this? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 16:32, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Unreferenced assertion
I'm transferring the following from my talk page to here. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:10, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Hello, on 11 July 2011, you added the following statement to the article on Subjunctive mood:


 * "The terms "present subjunctive" and "past subjunctive", such as appear in the following table, refer to the form and not to the time of action expressed. (Not shown in the table is the pluperfect subjunctive, which uses the had plus past participle construction when the counterfactual time of action is the past.)"


 * As far as I know, this is totally incorrect. The past subjunctive is only used to indicate a past tense subjunctive mood, never a present tense subjective mood.  The present subjunctive may refer to the future, however.  Perhaps this is the source of the confusion.  Oxford Dictionaries also seems to disagree with your assertion.  Thus I must ask you to provide a citation in a primary reference for this assertion.  Considering this assertion has been published on Wikipedia for approximately 21 months, you are likely to find many non-primary (e.g. Web page) references agreeing with you by now.  TheTruthWasOutThere (talk) 08:24, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, "if I were you" is a typical example of what is normally called the past subjunctive, yet it doesn't indicate any relationship to past time. Also the present subjunctive is not restricted to present time reference - it can refer not only to the present and future, but also to the past: "It was suggested that he resign." So the statement seems to me to be substantially correct. I also don't see anything in the linked blog page that would contradict it. Victor Yus (talk) 14:28, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * That is the "blog page" of Oxford Dictionaries. Also, if you don't see anything that would contradict this wrong assertion added by DuoDuoDuo, see below for elucidation. TheTruthWasOutThere (talk) 23:27, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * DuoDuoDuo replied:
 * (edit conflict)Two separate things here:
 * (1) You say The past subjunctive is only used to indicate a past tense subjunctive mood, never a present tense subjective mood. No. Remember that in linguistics "tense" means "time". E.g., the lead sentence of Grammatical tense says In grammar, tense is a category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place. For example, "I wish that I owned it" means "I wish that I owned it right now". This is present tense, because it refers to present time. We don't need a citation for that present time indication of "I wish that I owned it", because it falls into the category You don't need to cite that the sky is blue: every native speaker of English understands that. And the source you cite doesn't dispute that.


 * TheTruthWasOutThere replies:
 * Stop with the pedantic crap about "remember 'tense' means 'time.'" That is completely disingenuous of you to suggest that I would debate your WP:OR on this point without knowing that.  Your appeal to  You don't need to cite that the sky is blue is completely bogus, as well.  You are attempting to pretend that my argument is something other than to dispute that the Past Subjunctive is not Past Tense, which it is. TheTruthWasOutThere (talk) 23:27, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * (2) The source you cite says English has no special ‘past subjunctive verb endings’, so that we must conclude that English also has no past subjunctive verb forms. In other words, English has no verb forms (with the one exception your source gives) dedicated exclusively to the subjunctive. But of course, as our article implies, "owned" is different in form from "own", and the former is used subjunctively for present time while the latter is used indicatively for present time. Since our article doesn't assert that "owned" is exclusively a subjunctive form, there's no conflict with your source. And we don't need a source for the "sky is blue" assertion that "owned" is not identical to "own". Duoduoduo (talk) 14:41, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * TheTruthWasOutThere replies:
 * WOW. You are a disingenuous person, aren't you?  The quote you took from the Oxford Dictionary source that I cited has been taken out of context by you.  Here is the complete quote, with boldface emphasis added  by me:
 * "What about the past subjunctive? Again, English has no special ‘past subjunctive verb endings’, so that we must conclude that English also has no past subjunctive verb forms. There’s one exception, though, and this is when we use were in an example like the following: I wish he were more helpful. This use of were is a relic of the past subjunctive. We now also frequently hear I wish he was more helpful."


 * Notice that immediately following the sentences you quoted begins a sentence, "There's one exception..." Obviously you had to see that in order to do your cut-and-paste misrepresentation correctly.


 * I didn't ask you to come here and re-assert your belief. I asked you, on your talk page, to locate a primary reference rather than rely on your WP:OR.  Your talk page was the appropriate place to ask you to provide a valid reference to a priamry source.  I have provided a reference, to Oxford Dictionaries, which disputes you, and you have stooped to precarious lows here.  If you push an agenda of WP:OR and use falsification of primary sources in your defense, this is going to escalate quickly.  This sock-puppet account which I am using may be new, but I am not a newbie here.  You need to produce a primary source which states that English has no past tense subjunctive, without exception.  We all know that English has no past subjunctive conjugation of verbs other than "to be."  That is irrelevant; you are asserting that the Past Subjunctive form of "to be" is not the past tense, and that is false.  TheTruthWasOutThere (talk) 23:27, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, I saw the words "There's one exception...". That's why I said "with the one exception your source gives". So I didn't misrepresent it.


 * Your point seems to be your statement "you are asserting that the Past Subjunctive form of "to be" is not the past tense, and that is false." (1) The blog post you cite does not say that the past subjunctive of "to be" refers to past time. (2) The past subjunctive form of "to be" refers to present or future time, not past time. "If he were here right now, he would help us" refers to present time. Or do you think it means "If he were here in the past right now, ..."? Duoduoduo (talk) 00:31, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Duoduoduo wrote: "(2) The past subjunctive form of "to be" refers to present or future time, not past time."
 * Yes, that is the false assertion you are making. You've been asked to provide a citation and haven't.  Instead you have misrepresented references.  TheTruthWasOutThere (talk) 03:59, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see how you can think that this assertion is false, unless you are misunderstanding it. A phrase such as "if I were you" refers to (hypothetical) present (or possibly future time), not past time. If you were referring to past time, you would say "if I had been you". Victor Yus (talk) 10:12, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That is incorrect. If I were referring to past time, I would say "If I were you, I would have blah, blah."  If I were referring to future time, I have recently learned that I am supposed to say, "If I were to be you, I would blah blah."  Present time is included in past subjunctive, but future time is not, and there is a past tense form of subjunctive mood in the case of "to  be", and that is "He/she/I were." TheTruthWasOutThere (talk) 17:21, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you a native English speaker? I think any such speaker of standard English would use "if I were you" for future time (possibly) or present time, but not for past time. (In a "mixed conditional" sentence like If I were you, I would have run, the second clause certainly refers to the past, but the first clause refers to the present, or rather to the past, present and future taken together.) In any case, I think we agree that the "past subjunctive" is not associated with the expression of past time specifically (nor is the "present subjunctive" associated with the expression of present time specifically), so the statement that you originally objected to is in fact sound. Victor Yus (talk) 17:40, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Though I don't agree with the objection as expressed, there is a serious problem with this section in that it is not referenced, and if reliable sources such as The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language were used, we would have a problem with parts of the table. The problem is that, though authors do use different terminology, modern grammars of English use the term subjunctive to refer to those forms of the verb that (in part of the "conjugation table") use a different form from the indicative. The verbs be and own in the following are in the (present) subjunctive form: When describing events or states in the past, the same "present" subjunctive form is used So, in this respect, the word "past" in the term "past subjunctive" does not have the meaning of past time.
 * "The law requires that the superintendent be present at the meeting."
 * "The law requires that the Government own the means of communication."
 * "The law required that the superintendent be present at the meeting."
 * "The law required that the Government own the means of communication."

Also, the verbs be in the following is in the (so-called) past subjunctive form (some authors call this the irrealis form and avoid use of the word subjunctive, since it expresses a different modality from the so-called "present subjunctive"): Here "were" refers to present time. So, in this respect, the word "past" in the term "past subjunctive" does not have the meaning of past time. But, of course, the word "present" in the term "present tense" does not necessarily refer to present time, either.
 * "If Einstein were alive today, he would vote for our party."

However, "modal remoteness", in English is normally expressed not by the subjunctive but by a different verb form: the preterite" (sometimes called the simple past form). In colloquial English, the preterite rather than the "past subjunctive" is also used for the verb be'':
 * "If I owned a car, I would go for a long drive."
 * "If Einstein was alive today, he would vote for our party."

In English, the preterite is also used for a similar purpose of "remoteness", or distancing, in indirect speech, where German, for instance, would use the "present subjunctive" (Konjunktiv I, e.g. sei) or "past subjunctive" (Konjunktiv II, e.g. wäre). This is often referred to as "backshifting":
 * He said "I own a car." becomes "He said he owned a car."

So one problem with the table is that it treats the preterite form owned as if it were a subjunctive. This confuses mood with modality. If there are authors who clearly use the term subjunctive in this sense, they should be quoted. I don't think this should be presented as the mainstream view without sources. In my judgement, this questionable use of the term past subjunctive for the use of the preterite in conditions is not supported by
 * The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Huddleston, Pullum)
 * A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (Quirk et al.)
 * The Oxford English Grammar (Greenbaum)

The Oxford English Grammar is particularly clear:
 * "The past subjunctive is the hypothetical subjunctive. It is restricted to were . . .".

Unfortunately, some statements in grammar books permit an interpretation that the term subjunctive is being used to include the use of the preterite to express modal remoteness (e.g. "If I owned . . ."). But "if I was" (also the preterite") is usually identified correctly as the (preterite) indicative.

I would suggest removing the table completely. After all, this section is only supposed to be a short summary of the main article. --Boson (talk) 01:35, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * "So, in this respect, the word "past" in the term "past subjunctive" does not have the meaning of past time."
 * You have drawn an incorrect conclusion, here. Those verbs are in the past subjunctive, but they are indistinguishable from the present subjunctive.  Only "to be" is distinguishable, and it has a past tense subjunctive mood form ("were") as well as a future tense subjunctive mood form ("were ... to be").  Feel free to find a reference otherwise.  The table is fine, the problem is the statement I marked "citation needed," because it is false.
 * "But, of course, the word "present" in the term "present tense" does not necessarily refer to present time, either."
 * Really? Do tell.
 * TheTruthWasOutThere (talk) 03:59, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Time is not the same as tense. "The exhibition opens next week" expresses something about the future, but the verb used is present-tense. (Example from Huddleston and Pullum, A Student's Introduction, p. 31.) Boson, I agree with your analysis completely. Drmies (talk) 04:19, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Drmies, you can be an impartial admin, or you can have an opinion on the topic under debate. You can't do both.  TheTruthWasOutThere (talk) 04:41, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I am a friendly admin who answered a grammatical question you had. My answer did not give an opinion, as any linguist can tell you: it's a fact. Drmies (talk) 04:44, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * You're a linguist? If so, maybe you know the answer: How does one represent a past tense subjective mood form of the verb 'to be?' TheTruthWasOutThere (talk) 04:53, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll assume that "subjective" is a typo for "subjunctive". Your question then presupposes that subjunctive and past tense can be combined. But they can't be. See below. -- Hoary (talk) 08:13, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Even putting aside name-calling and so forth, the discussion above is confused. One problem is that the notion of "subjunctive" is confused, and a major reason for this is that traditional grammatical analyses are confused. They're confused because they are in books written to support the prejudices of their potential purchasers: by contrast, a book that (to take a subjunctive-irrelevant example) treats "ago" as an anomalous preposition (or a postposition, if you wish) is not going to appeal to small-minded schoolmarms (of either sex).

Luckily English has a reference grammar that was compiled after considering debates in linguistics and reexamining old assumptions on their merits rather than popularity. That book (of course already mentioned above) is The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL). It's neither uncontroversial nor infallible, but anyone disagreeing with any part of it should proceed after carefully digesting that part, thinking very hard, and (if writing for Wikipedia) citing something that's similarly authoritative.

CGEL tells us:


 * One striking weakness of the traditional analysis is that it treats the verbs of I be and I were as present and past tenses of a single mood, the subjunctive: this is quite unjustified in terms of the contemporary language. (p.87)

CGEL elaborates, but I am not going to violate copyright by regurgitating what it says, and I am not going to attempt to summarize because its phrasing is already compact. Very briefly, however, it demonstrates that where I be and I were can be fairly directly compared, there is no contrast of time. Of course the relationship between time and tense is not direct, but here there's no reason to think that time has anything to do with it. CGEL terms 1st/3rd person singular were the irrealis form of BE (p.88).

CGEL uses "subjunctive" quite differently, for a syntactic construction (one that employs a verb in its plain form, most clearly exemplified by "be"), not a verb form.

CGEL calls "subjunctive" various more or less fossilized constructions ("Far be it from me to block you indefinitely, but...", etc) in the main/matrix clause (p.90), and a very limited number of subordinate/embedded constructions (pp.993–1001). Although the latter kinds of constructions are few, they're used freely: as examples "I demanded that he be blocked indefinitely", "He should stop dicking around, lest he be blocked", "Whether you be an IP, a regular user, or an admin, I will block your ass". There's no hint in this substantial chunk of a very large book of (A) what is either conventionally or sensibly called the past tense (unless you perversely insist that "should" is necessarily the past tense of "shall") or indeed of (B) the past. -- Hoary (talk) 08:06, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Appealing to CGEL shuts out those people who don't want to pay over $100 for what appears to be an unhelpful tome. First, let's address the material you quoted:
 * One striking weakness of the traditional analysis is that it treats the verbs of I be and I were as present and past tenses of a single mood, the subjunctive: this is quite unjustified in terms of the contemporary language.
 * Any appeal to "the contemporary language" is immediately suspect in my opinion. The contemporary language allows constructs such as "I could of cared less."  The contemporary past subjunctive form of "to be" does not exist, "was" is simply used instead.  If we are going to take that approach, the article should say that English used to have a past subjunctive, and no longer does.
 * CGEL uses "subjunctive" quite differently, for a syntactic construction (one that employs a verb in its plain form, most clearly exemplified by "be"), not a verb form.
 * Does this not disagree with practically every other source, and the meaning of "subjunctive" when applied to other languages?
 * TheTruthWasOutThere (talk) 17:18, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Another elitist academic book, the Oxford English Grammar by Greenbaum et al (already referenced above, but a steal at less than $50), does use the term "past subjunctive"--but again this has nothing to do with time: "The past subjunctive were is the hypothetical subjunctive, used in hypothetical conditional clauses and some other hypothetical constructions: 'If I were you, I wouldn't go'" (633). Hoary, I suppose all our academic tomes will seem "suspect" since every single contemporary grammar in the world takes the descriptive approach. I wonder what books we'll be allowed to cite here. At least my Oxford grammar isn't tainted by communist associations that your Cambridge tome carries (though I have to admit that I use Huddleston and Pullum, A Student's Introduction, in the classroom for Advanced English Grammar, and Huddleston's English Grammar: An Outline is my go-to reference). Drmies (talk) 17:31, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Apropos of the above comments, I would mention that the definitions of "subjunctive mood" and "tense" as used in the discipline of linguistics are different from those often used in grammars of specific individual languages. Since the present article is on a linguistic concept and is not specific to a particular language, it should stick with the definitions that are used in linguistics. As per our article grammatical tense,


 * tense is a category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place. Tense is the grammaticalisation of time reference, often using three basic categories of "before now", i.e. the past; "now", i.e. the present; and "after now", i.e. the future.


 * So linguistic tense is the same thing as time reference, when the time reference is given by grammatical means.


 * The linguisitic meaning of "subjunctive mood", as given in the lede of the present article, is


 * The subjunctive is a grammatical mood....The subjunctive is an irrealis mood


 * and as our article grammatical mood says,


 * Grammatical mood is a grammatical (and specifically, morphological) feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying....Less commonly, the term is used more broadly to allow for the syntactic expression of modality — that is, the use of non-inflectional phrases.


 * So any grammatical change that indicates any of certain irrealis intentions is a change to the subjunctive mood. For example, changing "He is here" to either "I wish he were here" or "I wish he was here" changes from indicative to hypothetical, and it does so by means of the grammatical change "is"→"was/were", so the new sentences are in the subjunctive mood as it is defined in linguistics. Likewise, changing "I own it (now)" to "I wish I owned it (now)" changes the mood from indicative to irrealis by means of the grammatical morpheme "-ed", so the latter sentence is in the subjunctive mood.


 * Incidentally, in answer to something else that came up above, the past time expression of the subjunctive for "be" is "If I had been". This is subjunctive in the broader linguistic sense because it creates the irrealis by means of a grammatical construction which is syntactic rather than morphological (though the use of "had" is a morphological variant of "have"). Duoduoduo (talk) 20:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * There still remains the question, however, of how to distinguish between the two types of "subjunctive" (the ones that are called traditionally, though potentially misleadingly, the "present" and "past" subjunctive). Victor Yus (talk) 08:50, 20 February 2013 (UTC)


 * So any grammatical change that indicates any of certain irrealis intentions is a change to the subjunctive mood.I'm not too keen on referring to the mandative (present) subjunctive as indicating "certain irrealis intentions ". If the mandative (present) subjunctive expressed irrealis intentions, so would the the imperative. It is the "past subjunctive" (i.e. were) which expresses the hypothetical or counterfactual (rather than the "mandative"). The use of the term "subjunctive mood" in this context implies that the "present subjunctive" and the "past subjunctive" are the same mood. I have tried in the past to use traditional terms but incorporate mainstream linguistic thought, and I don't think I have been very successful. I don't know if we can get round this without biting the bullet and distinguishing between what different authorities say. We should cite them, but first, I think we need a reliable source for use (not mention) - with examples - of the word "subjunctive" to refer to the use of the preterite/simple past form ("owned") to express "irrealis intentions". I thought Garner might use it in this sense in his Modern American Usage but, apparently, he doesn't (though the way he expresses himself is, in my view, so confusing as to appear deliberately so). The same applies to Fowler's (3rd ed., Burchfield). Both of these do mention that the subjunctive is usually indistinguishable from the indicative, which might be misinterpreted to include the use of the preterite, but that inference is not supported by the surrounding text or the examples. On this topic, even the CGEL is not a model of unambiguous clarity, in my view, though one of its authors expresses himself fairly clearly here. As regards the statement in the Grammatical mood article Less commonly, the term is used more broadly to allow for the syntactic expression of modality — that is, the use of non-inflectional phrases. I would understand this to mean the  use of modal auxiliaries, as in CGEL (p.172): "The main mood system, therefore [in English], is analytic rather than inflectional, marked by the presence or absence of special words, the modal auxiliaries." This would be similar to the future tense being expressed by the use of a modal. Fowler's 1st and 2nd editions say the subjunctive is moribund, so that doesn't look as if he is using it to include the use of the preterite in remote conditions, though some of Fowler's original text might be misleading.--Boson (talk) 20:38, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I found a good source, focusing on English from a linguistic perspective: The Handbook of English Linguistics, Edited by Bas Aarts, April McMahon, Copyright © 2006 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.: 12 Mood and Modality, by ILSE DEPRAETERE AND SUSAN REED, pp. 270-290. http://data.ulis.vnu.edu.vn/jspui/bitstream/123456789/2897/1/10_eng_ling.pdf#page=283 It says on p. 271:


 * The indicative normally represents situations as facts, but the indicative past tense and past perfect can also be used modally, in specific structures, to represent situations as non-factual or counterfactual:
 * (7) It would be great if it rained tonight.
 * (8) If only Meg was/had been coming with us.
 * (9) I wish/wished he had told me about it.

So this source views the subjunctive as something there are two necessary conditions for: mandative or irrealis modality, and a form that is not only grammatically based but also distinctive -- i.e., a form that is exclusively mandative or irrealis. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:43, 20 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I think I understand all the ingredients of this message of yours, Duoduoduo, but I don't understand the logic with which you string them together. That aside, you call this a good source. But it's mostly about modality rather than mood. Depraetere and Reed do indeed refer to a "past subjunctive", but first they make clear that this has nothing to do with past reference, and secondly their endnote 3 acknowledges that CGEL has a quite different approach, and they say that they are instead following Quirk et al -- for which they may have a very good reason, but if they do have a good reason they don't obviously divulge it. I haven't read the chapter, which may be excellent on modality, but it doesn't impress me as a description of mood. -- Hoary (talk) 13:48, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Continuing thread on 21 February 2013 and forward

 * What does it say about "(if I) were" and "(that he) be" ? Victor Yus (talk) 07:58, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * It loads very slowly, but eventually it does load. P. 270-1: The past subjunctive is only distinct from the past indicative for first and third persons singular, which are realized by the form were.3 The terms present subjunctive and past subjunctive should not be taken to refer to the time reference of the forms in question. The present subjunctive can be embedded in a clause with present, past or future time reference (cf. (5c) ). The past subjunctive always refers either to a hypothetical (or ‘tentative’ – cf. Declerck and Reed (2001) ) situation or to a counterfactual situation, but the hypothetical or counterfactual situation may be located in the present, the past or the future:
 * (3) Jimmie wishes/wished/will wish his girlfriend were with him.
 * The present subjunctive is used in formulaic expressions (cf. (4) ), in more or less fixed phrases functioning as conditional clauses (cf. (5a), (5b) ) and after expressions (verbs, adjectives, and nouns) that express volition (cf. (5c) ), the so-called mandative subjunctive. In the latter case, should + infinitive is a less formal alternative:
 * (4) a. God save the Queen
 * b. If that’s how you feel, so be it.
 * c. Perish the thought.
 * (5) a. You can refer to this at a later date, if need be. (Cobuild, ukmags)4
 * b. If truth be told, it all sounds a bit earnest. (Cobuild, ukmags)
 * c. The board desires/ordered/will request that changes be (should be) made to the plans.
 * The past subjunctive is used productively in hypothetical (cf. (6a)) and counterfactual (cf. (6b)) conditional clauses and after the verb wish (cf. (6c)), but is not used as a mandative subjunctive:
 * (6) a. What would you say if I were to refuse to go?
 * b. If she were living closer, I’d visit her more often.
 * c. I wish I were in Phoenix now.
 * Duoduoduo (talk) 12:44, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Untitled
"The subjunctive in Indo-European languages"; as the first topic in Wikipedia's Subjunctive article, mentions many languages from various origins. Why then, is only English differentiated from its "genus" languages to elicit specific importance among them? I realize that this may be a courtesy due to my geographic location, yet I detest its presumed meaning as self-important and not objective as is possible, as one might expect from a source of reference. If one denimination of a family language be distinguished, I curiously hope that others should follow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.99.134.33 (talk) 04:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Mistake with subjuctive examples
"...in "If that were true, I would know it," were (a past subjunctive) has no past-tense sense."

Were in this case is in the conditional mood, not subjunctive. Does anyone have any suggestions for another example? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.143.198 (talk) 03:46, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Automated archiving
The talk page is getting a bit long and cluttered. I propose to set up automated archiving after a thread has not been edited for 90 days. Any objections? --Boson (talk) 15:28, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Boson (talk) 12:03, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Subjunctive and Optative in OCS
"Among the Indo-European languages, only Albanian, Avestan, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, and to some extent Old Church Slavonic kept the subjunctive and optative fully separate and parallel." I never heard OCS had either a subjunctive or an optative mood. It did have a conditional mood, while the PIE optative became the OCS imperative. --Nikcro32 (talk) 09:47, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Subjunctive in Portuguese
Original text:

''Portuguese

In Portuguese, the subjunctive (subjuntivo (Brazil) or conjuntivo (Portugal)) is used to talk about situations which are seen as doubtful, imaginary, hypothetical, demanded, or required. It can also express emotion, opinion, disagreement, denial, or a wish. Its value is similar to the one it has in formal English:

. Command: Faça-se luz! "Let there be light!"''

My point -- though I'm not a linguist, teacher or any kind of expert -- is that phrase is not an example of Subjunctive, but is in Imperative mood. BTW, my source for all that I write is basic school here in Brazil, as well as over half a century of Portuguese speaking. Please someone more skilled in Grammatics feel free to correct me.

Compare:

Que se faça a luz! (Subjunctive, "Let there be light!")

Faça-se a luz! (IMHO Imperative, "Light, be made!")

There's a subtle difference in meaning between Subjunctive and Imperative. IMHO (again), Imperative is used to command, while the Subjunctive is used to utter a command.

For instance, "que os façam entrar" (Subjunctive, "let them be made to enter") means an order to initiate the sequence of actions to bring someone inside. This could be delayed e.g. because of etiquette.

"Make them enter", OTOH, means bring them inside now. It's a direct order.

Such difference is a lot clearer in the example given above:

"Faça-se" refers to a verb usage with an unspecified subject (something possible in Portuguese). "Faça-se silêncio!" means everyone should be quiet (silent). It's an active form corresponding to the passive "seja feita" (be made). "Faça-se a luz!", in the context of the Bible (again IMHO), expresses the idea of a direct command, which will take place immediately. "Que se faça a luz!" would work, too, with less impact, it seems to me, because it's kinda like an order. I don't know if English has an active voice corresponding to "be made", but in Latin "Fiat lux!" is used.

A better way to put it is envisioning what someone would say in a prayer:

"Que a fome acabe!" ("Let hunger end!")

"Acabe com a fome!" ("End hunger!")

If someone is going to ask for something, giving orders like in the latter form seems inappropriate religious behavior. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.33.106.220 (talk) 03:51, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Catalan?
Any chance of anyone adding the Catalan subjunctive to this article? It seems a useful reference for the languages that have been included so far. AgTigress (talk) 11:54, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Indicative 'be'
This edit with others] was used to incorrectly imply that 'be' is an indicative form. There were no edit summaries, so it is not possible to guess what the editors were thinking. Is the present text unclear in some way, so that it repeatedly provokes such a change? --Boson (talk) 20:41, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Unsourced material moved to talk
The request for clarification was recently removed from the following text:


 * In French, despite the deep phonetic changes that the language has undergone from the original Latin, which include the loss of many inflections in the spoken language, the subjunctive (le subjonctif) remains prominent, largely because the subjunctive forms of many common verbs are strongly marked phonetically. Compare the indicative je sais (Iknow) and its subjunctive counterpart que je sache ([so] that I know).

Since it has been flagged as needing a reliable source since 2014, I am removing it from the article but moving it here in case it can be sourced and the meaning can be clarified. As I understand it, it seems to be saying that the French subjunctive still stands out (in the sense that it sounds different?), because it sounds very different. And this appears to be presented as contrasting ("despite") with the fact that there are considerable phonetic differences between French and Latin. The precise meaning is unclear to me. It also needs sourcing, of course. It appears that --Boson (talk) 11:50, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * the text was added by Ihcoyc with this edit at 2003-08-05T13:47:54
 * the request for clarification was added by BeenAroundAWhile with this edit at 2017-01-11T04:27:41

"I suggest that you be careful"
The opening section has as an example sentence "I suggest that you be careful". Isn't that an example of the imperative (albeit rather polite) rather than the subjunctive?

~ Hairouna (talk) 17:19, 17 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Be is the plain (or base form), which is used in different ways.
 * 'The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL p. 51) gives four (or three and a half) different constructions (in standard English):
 * Imperative : Take great care!
 * Subjunctive: It is essential that he take great care.
 * To infinitival: I advise you to take great care.
 * Bare infinitival: You must take great care.
 * CGEL refers to these as "clause constructions" with the same form, rather than different inflectional forms (that happen to be identical); other grammarians may express this reality differently, but the mandative subjunctive in that clauses is treated as different from the imperative. --Boson (talk) 18:07, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Names of German conjunctives
In order to clarify the box above the German section, the names for German conjunctive can be explained thus:

The names Konjunktiv I and Konjunktiv II are the traditional German names for these tenses. “Conditional” (in German: Konditional) is unusual in German. Therefore the confusion. In ordinary speech, moreover, Konjunktiv refers to Konjunktiv II i.e. conditional only, because the Konjunktiv I (subjunctive) is dead as a doornail nowadays. Nobody uses it. Children learn it in school in order to use reported speech correctly, but everybody tries to avoid it for fear of mistakes. Colloquial German uses the indicative for reported speech instead.

The only active phrase with a subjunctive I remember is Sie / Er lebe hoch! = “May she / he live high!” = “Hip hip hooray!” Lang lebe der König! = “Long live the King!” will be heard in history movies, but neither Germany nor Austria nor Switzerland has a king. Gott sei uns gnädig! (“God have mercy on us”) is historical too because those few that are so pious to still exclaim it rather hold their tongue in order not to count as fanatics. Therefore, the German subjunctive is a historical form that appears in older literature, in school children's essays, and in a few set phrases. --Curryfranke (talk) 13:54, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Conjugated tense or...    attacking tense??
https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/subjugation

Konjugativ = Subjunctive (English) =   attacking tense??

what's that

if I were a gentleman I would kindly say, ... Wikistallion (talk) 09:28, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Problem
Only one sentence in the whole article is about subjective mood.

Have you noticed that? 49.185.143.97 (talk) 21:47, 11 June 2022 (UTC)