subjunctive mood

subjunctive mood

1. The subjunctive mood, one of the great shifting sands of English grammar, is a verbal form or mood expressing wish or hypothesis in contrast to fact, and usually denotes what is imagined, wished, demanded, proposed, and so on. In modern English it is distinguishable from the ordinary indicative mood only in the third person singular present tense, which omits the final s (if he make rather than if he makes) and in the forms be and were of the verb to be.

2. The subjunctive mood was common in Old English and until about 1600, then went into decline but became prevalent again in the 20c, first in AmE and then in other forms of English including BrE:

• I was going to recommend that he be terminated —New Yorker, 1987

• It was as if Sally were disturbed in some way and was translating this disturbance into the habit of thought —Anita Brookner, BrE 1986

(note the shift to indicative mood after and)

• She insisted Jane sit there —Barbara Anderson, NewZE 1992

• It was suggested he wait till the next morning —Michael Ondaatje, CanE 1992

• The Ministry of Defence demanded that a crash barrier be built around the ‘central pool’ where the submarines were dismantled —Free India Media, IndE 2004 [OEC].

In many cases, an alternative construction with should can also be used:

• It was important that he should be included in my photographs —Dick Francis, 1980.

3. Typical subjunctive patterns are:

a) After if (or as if, as though, unless) in hypothetical conditions:

Each was required to undertake that if it were chosen it would place work here —Times, 1986

/

His voice strained as though he were walking on a wire above a pit of sharks —fiction website, AmE 2003

[OEC]. In this type the indicative can also be used, i.e. was instead of were in both the examples above, but the subjunctive conveys the hypothetical sense more forcefully.

b) In that-clauses following a verb connoting suggestion, wish, etc. (e.g.

demand, insist, pray, recommend, suggest, wish) Your situation demands that either Kooti be nobbled or Whitmore nullified —M. Shadbolt, NewZE 1986

/

Fundamentalist Islam…decrees that men and women be strictly segregated —Listener, 1988

/

He'd insisted his brother return home —fiction website, AmE 2002

[OEC]. But note that when insist has the sense ‘assert, state forcefully’ (and not ‘demand’) the ordinary indicative mood is needed:

Collins insists he has no regrets about any aspect of his career —Scotland on Sunday, 2002

.

c) Be or were placed at the head of a clause with the subject following in an inverted construction:

Statistically, afterworlds —be they Christian, Greek, Pharaonic —must be populated almost entirely by children —Penelope Lively, 1987

/

There was a real risk of his suffering inhumane and degrading treatment were he to return to India —London Review of Books, 2004

.

d) In negative constructions, not (or never etc.) is normally placed before the subjunctive verb (and this position identifies the subjunctive status of verbs in the first and second persons as well as the third):

One essential quality for a holiday novel is that it not be too light —Frederic Raphael, 1988

. /

Mr. Radley insisted that he not be sent to an asylum —literature website, AmE 2002

[OEC]. In uses of this kind the negative form makes the subjunctive mood transparent in other persons than the third singular:

I recommend that we not approve this letter —CNN news transcripts, 2005

[OEC].

e) In certain fixed expressions and phrases, e.g. as it were, be that as it may, come what may, far be it from me, God save the Queen, heaven forbid, long live the King, perish the thought, so be it.