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Why is this sentence correct? “She suggested that he go to the cinema.”

Which one is correct?

  1. Therefore, I highly recommend that she be given the excellence award.
  2. Therefore, I highly recommend that she is given the excellence award.
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user02222022
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    This is an instance of the mandative subjunctive, which is discussed in this question and this, among others. Your first example is Standard in US English; it's used in British English, but is more likely to be expressed as "she should be given". "She is given" is Right Out in this context. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 26 '12 at 02:28
  • Thank you. Now I know what term to look for the in the future. – user02222022 Nov 26 '12 at 02:44
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    @StoneyB - I think if you look at actual usage, though, you'll find that using a regular present tense (as in the second option) is more common than you are suggesting. It's definitely not "right out". Also, if you use the term "subjunctive" to describe this construction, you should still be aware that it is really a different construction to the "subjunctives" that occur in many other languages (syntactically, it's essentially an infinitive, whereas a "subjunctive" in, say, French, Spanish, Italian, German, or indeed Old English, is a conjugated verb form). – Neil Coffey Nov 26 '12 at 04:52
  • @NeilCoffey Fersher, it's not a conjugated form, and the name is imported from Latin grammar; but syntactically it's distinct from the infinitive. Morphologically they're the same form, just as the past participle, the passive participle and the base past form are morphologically identical in regular verbs. I meant Right Out in SE, though used in non-Standard Englishes. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 26 '12 at 12:03
  • Mmmm the thing is that syntactically it's much much more similar to an infinitive than a conjugated form, though! In fact, if you assume that there is a "null" modal in between the subject and the "subjunctive", there's really not much difference at all... – Neil Coffey Nov 26 '12 at 18:34
  • P.S. Re the preterite vs pp, the point is that you have a paradigm because some reasonable percentage of verbs (and, crucially, percentage of occurrences of verbs) actually do have distinct forms. With the so-called English "subjunctive", what you are proposing is a paradigm where precisely zero verbs actually have a distinct form. I know it's tradition, but it really makes no sense if you think about it. – Neil Coffey Nov 26 '12 at 18:59

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