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The Subjunctive Mood In English

Form

The form of the Subjunctive in Modern English is only discernable from the Indicative in three circumstances:

1. in the third person singular of the Present Indicative (excluding modal verbs),

2. with the verb “to be” in the Present tense, and

3. in the first person singular and third person singular of verb “to be” in the Past tense.

Other that the verb "to be", the Past Subjunctive was distinguishable from the Past Indicative in Early Modern English in the second person singular. For example: Indicative thou sattest, but Subjunctive thou sat.

In some texts that use the archaic pronoun thou, a final -est or -st is sometimes added; for example, "thou beest" appears frequently in the work of Shakespeare and some of his contemporaries.

Construction

Present Indicative

Present Subjunctive

Past Indicative

Past Subjunctive

To Own

(regular verb)

I own

You own

He/She/It owns

We own

You own

They own

I own

You own

He/She/It own

We own

You own

They own

I owned

You owned

He/She/It owned

We owned

You owned

They owned

I owned

You owned

He/She/It owned

We owned

You owned

They owned

To Be

I am

You are

He/She/It is

We are

You are

They are

I be

You be

He/She/It be

We be

You be

They be

I was

You were

He/She/It was

We were

You were

They were

I were

You were

He/She/It were

We were

You were

They were

Present And Past Subjunctive

The terms "present subjunctive" and "past subjunctive" are misleading since if I were... can equally refer to present time as well as past. For example: "If he were here now, I would tell him.". To make matters even more complicated, "If he be here now" would not be considered grammatically correct even though it is logically employing the present subjunctive in a present time context.

Past Interior Subjunctive

A Past Interior Subjunctive can be constructed using "had" (in its guise as the Past Subjunctive of "to have") plus the past participle. For example:

If I had known (yesterday), I would have done something about it.
If I had seen you, I would definately have said "hello".

Future Subjunctive

A Future Subjunctive can be constructed using "were" plus the Infinitive. For example:

If I were to die tomorrow, you would inherit everything.
If you were to give me the money, I would say no more about it.

Construction By Inversion

Where the Subjunctive is used after “if” to express doubt or improbability, the same effect can be achieved by omitting the “if” and inverting the verb and subject.

If I were the President... / Were I the President...
If he had a car with him... / Had he a car with him...
Had we but world enough, and time ...(Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress)
Come tomorrow, I will be on that plane.

Construction Using A Modal Verb

The Subjunctive mood can be expressed using the modal verbs shall (should) and may (might).

I recommend that he (should) be taken away.
(May) the Lord bless you and keep you.
I put your dinner in the oven so that it (should) keep warm.
He wrote it in his diary so that he (might) remember.

Usage

As well as being immortalised in fossil phrases, the Subjunctive is used in English to express a command, desire, hypothesis, purpose, doubt or supposition.

1. Set Phrases

The Subjunctive is used in a number of fossil phrases. Common examples are:

as it were
be that as it may
(God) bless you!
come what may
(God) damn it!
far be it from (or for) me
till death do us part
God save our gracious Queen; long live our noble Queen.
Heaven forfend/forbid
so be it
suffice it to say
woe betide
peace be with you

2. To express a COMMAND or DESIRE

Verbs of command, desire or suggestion require a verb in a subordinate clause to be in the Subjunctive. Such verbs include to propose, to suggest, to recommend, to move, to demand and to mandate, and phrases formed from them include it is imperative that, it is necessary that, and it is mandatory that.

It is important to note that the time reference of the sentence is conveyed by the tense of the main verb (usually in the Indicative) rather than the Subjunctive.

Thus the following examples refer to the present (with possible relevance to the future):

I move that the bill be put to a vote.
I demand that Napoleon surrender!
It is necessary that the class be cancelled.
I wish that Susan were here.
I wish I were an Oscar Mayer weiner.

The following examples refer to the past (with possible relevance to the present):

I moved that the bill be put to a vote.
I demanded that Napoleon surrender!
It was necessary that the class be cancelled.
I wished that Susan were here.

Note, however, that the following are at worst ungrammatical and at best solecisms.

? I move that the bill were put to a vote.

? I moved that the bill were put to a vote.

? I demand that Napoleon surrendered!

? I demanded that Napoleon surrendered!

? It is necessary that the class were cancelled.

? It was necessary that the class were cancelled.

? I wish that Susan be here.

? I wished that Susan be here.

? I hope he be here.

? I hope he were here.

? I hoped he be here.

When the main verb of a sentence is in the Subjunctive Mood it carries the force of a third person request. This is the usage found in many set expressions, such as God bless you.

America, America, God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood (America the Beautiful)
God save our gracious Queen

This use of the Subjunctive is sometimes known as the "Jussive" or "Mandative" Subjunctive.

3. To express a HYPOTHESIS

The Past Subjunctive is used after the conjunction “if” to express a hypothetical situation. For example:

If I were a millionaire, I would buy a sports car.
If I knew when she's coming, I would prepare her dinner.
If he had a car with him, he could drive us there.
If I were a rich man, ... There would be one long staircase just going up, and one even longer coming down.— (Fiddler on the Roof)

In this same context, the Subjunctive is used following the adverbial phrases “as if “ and “as though” to express a derisory improbability. For example:

He tried to explain it - as if he knew what he was talking about!
She tried to look calm during the eye test - as though she were able to read the chart!

4. To express a PURPOSE

The Present Subjunctive is used following the conjunction “lest” to express a negative possibility, and "(so) that" to express positive purpose.

I eat lest I die.
I'll place the book back on the shelf, lest it get lost.
I put your dinner in the oven so that it keep warm.
He wrote it in his diary so that he remember.

5. To express a DOUBT or SUPPOSITION

The Subjunctive is sometimes used after other conjunctions to express doubt or supposition, although this usage is nowadays more often replaced by the Indicative.

I will not let thee go, except [=unless] thou bless me. (Old Testament)
Murder, though it have no tongue, will speak.
Whoever he be, he shall not go unpunished.
But [=although] he were dead, yet shall he live. (New Testament)

Hypercorrect Usage

The Subjunctive has sometimes been used simply as a conditioned variant that follows "if" and similar words even in the absence of a hypothetical situation.

Johnny asked me if I were afraid. (Barbara in Night of the Living Dead (1968))

In the example quoted, "if" is a substitute for the unambiguous word "whether" ("Johnny asked me whether I was afraid"), and lacks the usual, "in the event that" meaning that it has in other usage such as "If we go to bed now, we'll be up at three o'clock".

Demise of the Subjunctive?

In many dialects of English, the Indicative can take the place of the Subjunctive, although this is sometimes considered erroneous in formal or educated speech and writing.

If I was the President...
If he was a ghost...

However, in the context of the examples above, inversion cannot occur with the Indicative as it would with the Subjunctive.

? Was I the President...

? Was he a ghost...

Furthermore, many of the fossil phrases are often wrongly analyzed as Imperative forms rather than as the Subjunctive.

W. Somerset Maugham said that "The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible".

H.W. Fowler said that "Subjunctives met with today, outside the few truly living uses, are either deliberate revivals by poets for legitimate enough archaic effect, or antiquated survivals as in pretentious journalism, inflecting their context with dullness, or new arrivals possible only in an age to which the grammar of the subjunctive is not natural but artificial."On the other hand, an alternative view is that the subjunctive mood remains an ordinary working feature of English grammar, but that it is called moribund because it is often indistinguishable from the ordinary present and past indicative.

The subjunctive is not uniform in all varieties of spoken English. However it is preserved in speech, at least, in North American English, and in many dialects of British English. While some dialects replace it with the indicative or construct it using a modal verb (except perhaps in the most formal literary discourse) the reports of its demise have been exaggerated.

The Subjunctive Mood In English

Form

Construction

Usage

Hypercorrect Usage

Demise of the Subjunctive?

Further Reading