6

This is another subjunctive and conditional question. I am interested in the formal, even archaic, uses, not just the modern uses (I am given to understand that the subjunctive is disappearing from use, for the most part). I am interested to know if my examples are accurate, if there is anything important I have missed, and finally there is a specific question on the use of the subjunctive in mixed conditionals. If you feel there is anything important that needs to be borne in mind concerning subjunctives, please include it.

According to The University of Ottawa Writing centre (here), the subjunctive is used:

"...in dependent clauses to express unreal conditions..."

My attempt: If I were a skilled footballer, I should be rich.

"...in dependent clauses following verbs of wishing or requesting."

My attempt: I wish I were a skilled footballer.

My attempt: I insisted he call her today.

Strangely enough, It doesn't seem to be used with "hope".

The subjunctive mood is used in a dependent clause attached to an independent clause that uses a verb such as "ask," "command," "demand," "insist," "order," "recommend," "require," "suggest," or "wish."

My attempt: The king ordered the soldier be shackled, before he escape. (Setting aside the issue of whom the pronoun "he" belongs to, is "escape", as oppose to "escapes", correct?)

The subjunctive mood is also used in a dependent clause attached to an independent clause that uses an adjective that expresses urgency (such as "crucial," "essential," "important," "imperative," "necessary," or "urgent").

My attempt: Melinda said that it is necessary that she skip through the park; it makes her feel better.

On the wiki page for conditionals (here), if identifies zero, first, second, third and mixed (second and third) conditionals.

The zero conditional can make use of the subjunctive, according to wikipedia, but this is archaic:

wiki example:

"If the prisoner be held for more than five days, ..."

My attempt: When/If there be light rain, the ground will be moist.

The subjunctive is used in second conditionals, and I believe this is the same as the first example (expressing unreal conditions).

Wiki example:

"If I (he, she, it)... were rich, there would be plenty of money available for this project."

The third conditional is used "to refer to hypothetical situations in a past time frame, generally counterfactual... Here the condition clause is in the past perfect, and the consequence is expressed using the conditional perfect." So, despite being counterfactual, or percieved to be counterfactual, there is no subjunctive (perhaps it is equivalent in form and therefore is ignored/"doesn't exist".

Wiki example:

"If you had called me, I would have come."

Having established this, I am confused by the mixed conditional.

""Mixed conditional" usually refers to a mixture of the second and third conditionals (the counterfactual patterns). Here either the condition or the consequence, but not both, has a past time reference... When the consequence refers to the past, but the condition is not expressed as being limited to the past, the condition clause is expressed as in the second conditional (past, but not past perfect), while the main clause is in the conditional perfect as in the third conditional: 
    If we were soldiers, we wouldn't have done it like that." (emphasis mine)</blockquote>

Since the "condition clause" is from the second conditional, why does it not feature the subjunctive? My attempt: If I were a soldier, I wouldn't have done it like that.

I would like to thank everyone for their contributions; I am expanding the post due to feedback as there is clearly more to consider regarding the subjunctive.

I am unclear as to the differences between the irrealis and the subjunctive. It has been pointed out that they are related; I get the impression that the irrealis is just the exception to the rule for how to form the subjunctive in the past:

The present subjunctive, both are the bare infinitive:

To learn: I insisted that he learn to appreciate hats.

To be: I insisted that he be a hat connoisseur.

The past subjunctive is the exception: all taking the simple past, except to be:

To smell: I insisted that he smelt hats.

To be: I wish that he were a hat-smeller.

To me, it doesn't seem to have a different role.

Another issue is the future subjunctive. Here, again, "were" pops-up:

To manufacture: If I were to manufacture hats, I would never have to buy one again.

To be: If I were to be a hat manufacturer, I would never have to buy a hat again.

Were makes some (seemingly) random appearances...

As for the archaic references, I wasn't too specific, my apologies. I suppose I meant more Georgian/Victorian/Edwardian eras than Shakespeare.

Mari-Lou A
  • 91,183
nbhr
  • 141
  • 1
    For the mixed conditional: "if we were soldiers", that *is* the subjunctive. It's just that in first person plural, it looks (and sounds) exactly like the indicative. – Peter Shor May 31 '14 at 13:07
  • Thank you for the above. At the very least, it comprises a strong argument for the dropping of the subjunctive. – Edwin Ashworth May 31 '14 at 13:29
  • 1
    All your examples look accurate to me, but I feel certain that there are more places the subjunctive was used in the past that you've left out. – Peter Shor May 31 '14 at 15:12
  • 1
    (I am given to understand that the subjunctive is disappearing from use, for the most part) -- That's not true, especially not for AmE, e.g. the mandative subjunctive. The subjunctive construction is different from the irrealis "were"--but unfortunately traditional grammars have conflated them together. . . . – F.E. May 31 '14 at 15:50
  • . . . For your last question: "If I was/were a soldier, I wouldn't have done it like that" is saying that I am not a soldier and was not a soldier in the past when that event had occurred, but if I had been, I would've done it differently. And last but not least, you can't really learn decent grammar off the internet. Also, many grammar usage manuals are wrong on these issues. – F.E. May 31 '14 at 15:51
  • @F.E.: traditional grammars have conflated them together because they *used to be* two aspects of the same thing. Imagine that the continent Atlantis has sunk, and the only remnants above water are two islands, Lemuria and Mu. You might say "traditional geographers have erred by conflating Lemuria and Mu together as part of the same entity", but the traditional geographers aren't exactly wrong; the *landscape* has changed. Similarly, most uses of the subjunctive have died out; leaving two seemingly-unrelated constructions. The OP wants a map of antediluvian Atlantis. – Peter Shor May 31 '14 at 19:07
  • @PeterShor Traditional grammar was taught in the 1960s when I went to school, and the grammar of the English spoken then is basically the same grammar of today's. Traditional grammar is wrong for today's English grammar (2014), and it was wrong way back then too. That is, the actual grammar of English has not changed much at all since the 1960s--though, our understanding of English grammar has changed a lot since then. – F.E. May 31 '14 at 22:22
  • 1
    @F.E. But the OP isn't interested in the modern usages. – Peter Shor May 31 '14 at 22:25
  • @PeterShor Do you really think the OP was/is interested in one of the older Englishes? Though the OP says, "I am interested in the formal, even archaic, uses, not just the modern uses", the OP also links to what I think is a site on today's grammar (supposedly). Anyhow . . . – F.E. May 31 '14 at 22:29
  • 2
    @EdwinAshworth: You mean "[I wish], at the very least, that it comprise a strong argument for the dropping of the subjunctive." ^_^ – Robusto Jun 01 '14 at 13:13
  • 1
    The past subjunctive is the exception: all taking the simple past, except to be: -- No, that is false. You can also use the preterite (the simple past-tense) of "BE": compare "If I were / *was* a handsome man, . . ." The irrealis "were" is an additional thingie. Also, the terminology you're using is from traditional grammar, and so, since the terminology is all confused, that'll make the explanations all sound confused. I had seen a wikipedia page that sorta described this stuff somewhat decently, though that page didn't mark the wrong info that it had also summarized. – F.E. Jun 01 '14 at 16:46
  • 1
    My attempt: "The king ordered the soldier be shackled, before he escape." (Setting aside the issue of whom the pronoun "he" belongs to, is "escape", as oppose to "escapes", correct?) -- Wrong part, it's this: "The king ordered (that) the soldier be shackled, before …" (the subjunctive mandative) -- As you've noticed, your post has grown, and there are a lot of questions. There are a lot of issues and topics in your post, and it would take pages and pages for someone to, er, discuss all this stuff. I do like to procrastinate, but . . . :) – F.E. Jun 01 '14 at 16:56
  • @F.E. Thankyou for the help. It's not procrastination when it's constructive ;). I thought the post might serve as a reference point. Thanks for the correction with "[t]he king ordered...", I didn't know that an object (I assume "...the soldier be shackled" is the object of the verb 'to order') can be considered a dependent clause, which threw me off in trying to create an example. The U. of Ottawa source is a little ambiguous, but where it says "in a dependent clause attached to an independent clause", is "before he escape(s)" a dependent clause that can be used in this instance? – nbhr Jun 01 '14 at 17:34
  • It is difficult to discuss the topics in your post if one is using traditional grammar's terminology (and/or also using traditional grammar's framework, which is a terrible and faulty framework). I'd like to suggest that a vetted grammar source be used, such as the 2005 textbook by Huddleston and Pullum, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar--or perhaps use the 2002 reference grammar CGEL. I can discuss individual issues, one at a time, usually, and that can often take up a page or more doing that. Perhaps if you can restrict your post to a single specific issue and example? – F.E. Jun 01 '14 at 17:46
  • Actually, I think there was a really good brief post on the English "subjunctive" that had been written a few months ago--perhaps by a linguistics grad student who had written a related paper or thesis. It might have been on this site, or some other site. So . . . – F.E. Jun 01 '14 at 18:02
  • 2
    I didn't find the post I was looking for. But I did run into a long post that you might be interested in: http://english.stackexchange.com/a/156416/57102 – F.E. Jun 01 '14 at 18:07
  • I think your question about the statement from mixed conditionals, as well as some of the other scenarios where the subjunctive causes the most trouble, has to do with a conflation between verb tense and verb mood. Modern English is terrible with this but in languages with more structured verbs like Latin there can be a "perfect subjunctive" or a "pluperfect subjunctive" as compared to the "perfect indicative." Thus it is possible for a verb in some conditionals to be both simple perfect and subjunctive. – pavja2 Jun 11 '14 at 19:00
  • @pavja2: I don't believe English has ever had a "perfect subjunctive" tense. – Peter Shor Jun 15 '14 at 13:32
  • @PeterShor Agreed. My point was just that the concept of the subjunctive is a holdover from languages which had both tenses and moods for their verbs and since English is not that nuanced construction of the subjunctive in cases like mixed conditionals often seems irrational and arbitrary. – pavja2 Jun 16 '14 at 00:47
  • The sentence "The king ordered the soldier be shackled, before he escape" doesn't feel natural to me. I would prefer "... be shackled, lest he escape." – Théophile Jun 18 '14 at 17:06
  • “It is clear that a division of conditionals into the zero, first, second, and third categories does not adequately reflect actual usage.” —from *“If only it were true: the problem with the four conditionals”,* Christian Jones and Daniel Waller, ELT Journal 65:1 pp 24–32 (2011), Oxford University Press, doi: 10.1093/elt/ccp101. – tchrist Jan 24 '15 at 14:37
  • Your examples: “I insisted he smelt hats” and “I wish he were a hat smeller” are grammatical, but they seem slightly ridiculous. A person is not usually employed to smell hats, perfumes—yes, but hats? – Mari-Lou A Apr 26 '15 at 04:17
  • Related – tchrist Jul 22 '19 at 23:56

1 Answers1

0

When it comes to archaic uses of subjunctive, I can give some insight from Latin. There are four main uses for subjunctive in Latin:

 • Jussive — Used for commands, "Let us eat."
 • Potential — Used when something that is possible, "That could be so."
 • Optative — Used for wishes "Would it were over!"
 • Deliberative — Used for questions of oneself "What am I to do?"

These are used and categorized a little differently in English grammar.

"Hope" is different from "wish" because of the amount of knowledge the speaker has. You would say, "I hope you are writing" only if you don't know if they're writing, but you'd say, "I wish you were writing" if you know they are not. Wish uses the subjunctive because the wish is contrary to fact, but hope does not need it because a hope may not be contrary to fact.

Subjunctive mood is a member of the set of irrealis moods.

Andrew Leach
  • 101,901
Qaz
  • 3,437
  • 2
    This doesn't seem to have much to do with English subjunctives and irrealis, which is what the OP is asking about. Why is Latin grammar relevant? – herisson Apr 16 '15 at 05:52