Sunjunctive?

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From,

http://able2know.org/topic/171001-1

There really isn't anything more at the other thread that isn't here. But for those who want all the possible background, I've provided the link.

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Quote:

jtt wrote: If you go, let me know. [not subjunctive]

Quote:

McTag replied: If you were to go, I'm sure to find out. (subjunctive)

Is this subjunctive mood, or just an example of a particular subjunctive form?

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[+3] - George - 04/20/2011Pardon my ignorance, but what is the difference between "subjunctive mood" and "subjunctive form"?

The" if . . . were" is a particular subjunctive clause.

I have seen it termed as a "Condition 2."

See: http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000031.htm

or just google "if . . were subjunctive"

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@PUNKEY,

Thanks, Punkey, but I've got lots of sources on the subjunctive. The question I was asking, of McTag, but I'm hardly limiting to him, is,

Is this, below, subjunctive mood, or just an example of a particular subjunctive form?

If you were to go, I'm sure to find out. (subjunctive)

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@JTT,

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the difference between "subjunctive mood"
and "subjunctive form"?

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@George,

That's what I'm trying to work out, George.

Subjunctive mood is often described as that which describes contrary to fact situations.

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@George,

Actually, from the title I put in, it seems that I want to know what the sunjunctive is, not the subjunctive, George.

Embarrassed

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@George,

Quote:

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the difference between "subjunctive mood" and "subjunctive form"?

Here's the distinction, George.

1A) "If I was you, I would/may/might/should/etc"

is an example of the subjunctive mood but 'was' isn't a subjunctive form.

1B) "If I were you, I would/may/might/should/etc"

is an example of subjunctive mood and 'were' is an example of a subjunctive form.

2A) "If I had been born as George, I would/probably would/ may/might/should/etc"

is subjunctive mood but there is no subjunctive form in the sentence.

3A) "I insist that he bring a friend"

is an example of subjunctive mood and 'bring' is a subjunctive form.

3B)"I insist that he brings a friend"

I would say that this is NOT an example of subjunctive mood. There is no subjunctive form in the sentence. Yet it is identical in meaning to 3A.

There are some more formulaic subjunctives that we needn't concern ourselves about.

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The following is from,

http://able2know.org/topic/172913-4#post-4633452

Quote:

You're not asking if he were a figurehead (although you may have wrongly considered the term appropriate), but rather, whether or not his ideas were original.

I've noticed, more than once, that this particular person uses a subjunctive form [underlined above] in situations where there is no subjunctive mood and where there is no contrary to fact situation.

To me, this,

"You're not asking if he were a figurehead"

says,

You're not asking if he, in fact, was a figurehead, ...

OR

You're not asking about the fact situation, "Was Hitler a figure head?".

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ooops. I thought this was a thread for sun junkies.

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@JPB,

May well be, JPB, in its second life.

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@JTT,

How the hell do I know?

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@JPB,

JPB wrote:

ooops. I thought this was a thread for sun junkies.

And I believe it's about the opposite of moonjunctive.

The subjunctive is a shadow of reality, and the moon reflects the light of the sun. So one can count on the invastigation of moonjunctive to understand the properties of sunbjunctive. As we do when we probe the black box.

http://www.picupload.us/images/00aaa.jpg

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Is this the one you meant, McTag?

Quote:

Mind your language
DOT WORDSWORTH2 JULY 2011
Subjunctivitis

An American soldier just back from Afghanistan said on television that he thought his fellow combatants should not be withdrawn ‘until the country is stable enough that it can stand on its own feet’. What struck me was not the opinion on strategy but the grammar.

Instead of saying ‘stable enough that it can’, I’d have said ‘stable enough to stand’. My preference for the accusative and infinitive (‘I request him to shut up’) over a subordinate clause with a subjunctive (‘I request that he shut up’) does not cover every circumstance where the so-called mandative subjunctive is used. I can wish, ask, prefer, command, beg, love or require him to shut up, but I cannot suggest, demand or insist him to shut up.

In the latter examples, like everyone else, I use a subordinate clause, and within that clause the verb may be in the subjunctive mood. This seldom shows, because, with regular verbs, the only distinct form of the subjunctive is the third person singular present. So the verb is shut instead of shuts in the subordinate clause: ‘I suggest that he shut up’.

Americans seem far fonder of clauses containing the subjunctive than we are. This is only an impression. I have not read all 129 pages of Mandative Subjunctive in American and British English in the 20th Century, a publication of the university of Uppsala, even though I have had almost 16 years to do so. Perhaps I never shall.

As it is, I was surprised to read the following sentence in the Daily Telegraph: ‘Sixth-formers used social networking websites to demand that the test is re-run.’ There, the subjunctive would surely be normal (and the subjunctive of ‘to be’ is be: ‘demand that the test be re-run’).

The subjunctive used to be a thriving breed on the English-language farm. Now it is so seldom observed that we hardly know how to recognise it. Sometimes we presume that a clause such as ‘that the test be re-run’ is short for ‘that the test should be re-run’. This merely reflects a growing uncertainty about the identity and use of subjunctives. I suggest as a remedy a nice long holiday in Spain, where little children play happily with subjunctives in the sunshine all day long.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/politics/all/7060063/mind-your-language.thtml

1 Reply

@JTT,

Quote:

Is this the one you meant, McTag?

Yes.
I like Dot Wordsworth. (possibly a nom-de-plume)
I wish she would publish a book of her selected articles.

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Quote:

I've never heard of a General Rodgers in Confederate service, which is not conclusive, but if there were such a man, he was pretty obscure.

http://able2know.org/topic/185217-1

Another one has shown up. Actually Setanta uses this form a lot. Merry Andrew also used it. When asked why, he couldn't respond with any explaantion.

I wonder whether it is a dialectal variant or the result of being a long time English language pedant.

See also,

http://able2know.org/topic/135113-1

1 Reply

From Jack and the Beanstalk. The Giant speaks:

"Fee, fi, fo, fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman
Be he alive, or be he dead
I'll grind his bones to make my bread!"

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Quote:

And I suppose the child's hope of being a pilot were dashed after that as well.

http://able2know.org/topic/194987-3

Another hypercorrection?

1 Reply

Blithering idiocy on the subjunctive
June 27, 2012 @ 5:55 am · Filed by Geoffrey K. Pullum under Language and education, Syntax

In the Glossary of Terms attached to the UK's National Literacy Strategy it says this about the subjunctive (as I learned from a useful and appropriately scathing post on Michael Rosen's blog):

The subjunctive form of a verb is occasionally used in very formal contexts to indicate unreality, uncertainty, wish, emotion, judgement, or necessity. Its inflection is complicated, because it does not always differ from nonsubjunctive forms.

What an unbelievable piece of outright burbling nonsense.

Here is an example of the subjunctive construction, using the verb walk:

It is essential that he walk at least half an hour each day.

Now for that complicated inflection you were warned about; brace yourselves:

singular plural
1st person walk walk
2nd person walk walk
3rd person walk walk

So the subjunctive always uses a form identical to the non-3rd-singular present tense. This holds for all verbs, with a single exception: There is one irregular verb where in subjunctives the form is different from any of the present-tense forms, if you can bear to contemplate such a thing. That verb is be. Here is its highly complicated paradigm:

singular plural
1st person be be
2nd person be be
3rd person be be

So the business about the inflection being complicated is just idiocy.

And what about that helpful explanation of the meanings expressed? Unreality, uncertainty, wish, emotion, judgement, necessity? I hope that was really helpful to you. But I don't know what the hell they're talking about. It is easy to see for all of these vague meaning-based categories that they do not in general trigger use of the subjunctive:

unreality: *It would be totally unreal that he win a medal.

uncertainty: *I am really not sure that he win a medal.

wish: *I hope he win a medal.

emotion: *****, I'm so mad that he win a medal!

judgement: *In my considered opinion, he win a medal.

necessity: *There is no conceivable situation where he not win a medal.

The people who wrote the glossary entry simply have no idea what they're talking about in connection with the subjunctive construction itself.

In addition, in a familiar mistake that is found in most traditional grammars, they have confused the very restricted irrealis form were (as in I wish I were a monkey) with the quite differently limited subjunctive, which has nothing to do with it. They call the irrealis were the past tense of the subjunctive form. Clueless.

I really worry about my subject. In science, teachers aren't always brilliant experts, but generally the chemistry teacher knows that osmium isn't made of chlorine. In grammar, you can't count on even basic competence of that sort in the people who devise the national curriculum.

As Mark Liberman has so often pointed out here on Language Log, it's our fault: We linguists have work to do. In a hundred years of the scientific study of linguistic structure (I'm counting from when Ferdinand de Saussure had given all the offerings of his "Course in General Linguistics") we haven't succeeded in getting even a modest amount of sensible classification and terminology into the teaching of grammar in the schools.

The UK National Literacy Strategy is a disgrace (and I am pleased to hear the rumors that the present government is thinking of ditching it); but we linguists are at fault for not riding herd on them better.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4042

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@JTT,

jtt:

Quote:

Another one has shown up. Actually Setanta uses this form a lot. Merry Andrew also used it. When asked why, he couldn't respond with any explaantion.

I wonder whether it is a dialectal variant or the result of being a long time English language pedant.

Setanta:

Quote:

Based on the habits i picked up from French, i would write "If there were one virtue i could claim . . . " If i used can, i would write "If there is one virtue i can claim . . . "

Post: # 5,327,378

http://able2know.org/topic/213956-1

Mystery solved as far as Set is concerned. It is a hypercorrection.

But this seems to extend to more than Merry and Set. Frank Apisa was tricked by a similar example. I've seen it in Roger's writing too.

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@JTT,

Quote:

And I suppose the child's hope of being a pilot were dashed after that as well.

http://able2know.org/topic/194987-3

Another hypercorrection?

I don't think so. I think that's a misprint/ typo for "..the child's hopes were dashed..."

1 Reply

Sunjunctive?

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