The formation of the Subjunctive Mood

MOODS IN MODERN ENGLISH

Mood is a grammatical category which indicates the attitude of the speaker towards the action expressed by the verb from the point of view of its reality. There are two basic classifications.

According to the first classification there are 3 moods:

1) The Indicative Mood.

a) It shows that the action or state expressed by the verb is presented as a fact.

E.g. You are the most interesting person for me.

E.g. He finished school a year ago.

b) It is also used to express a real condition, i.e. a condition the realization of which is considered possible.

E.g. If he comes, let me know.

2) The Imperative Mood.

a) It expresses a command or a request. It has only one form which coincides with the infinitive without the particle to, it is used in the 2^nd person Singular and Plural.

E.g. Fetch me a chair.

E.g. Write it down.

E.g. Walk this way, please.

b) In forming the negative the auxiliary verb to do is always used, even with the verb to be.

E.g. Don’t be hasty.

E.g. Don’t tease me!

c) A command addressed to the 3^rd person Singular and Plural is usually expressed with the help of the verb to let. With the 1^st person Plural the verb to let is used to express an exhortation to a joint action.

E.g. Let them wait.

E.g. Let’s have lunch.

3) The Subjunctive Mood.

It shows that the action or state expressed by the verb is presented as a non-fact, as something imaginary or desired. The Subjunctive Mood is also used to express an emotional attitude of the speaker to real facts.

E.g. But for the rain, I would go out.

E.g. He looked at me as if he knew me.

According to the second classification there are 6 moods:

1) The Indicative Mood.

2) The Imperative Mood.

There are 4 Oblique Moods:

3) The Suppositional Mood. It represents the action as problematic but not contradicting to reality, it represents the action as desirable, suggested or supposed.

E.g. It is desirable that we should start shipping the goods.

4) Subjunctive I is close to the Suppositional mood in its meaning, but its forms are different. Subjunctive I is seldom used in British English, but is common for American English.

E.g. I insist you stay on to lunch.

5) Subjunctive II represents the action as contrary to reality.

E.g. I wish she had been a little nicer to us.

6) The Conditional Mood expresses the unreal action the unreality of which is due to the absence of the necessary conditions.

E.g. If he had enough money, he would buy a car.

E.g. If he had had enough money then, he would have bought a car.

The English Past and Present tenses are in what is usually referred to as the Indicative Mood. Each of the past and present tenses in the Indicative Mood has a corresponding tense in the Subjunctive Mood.

In modern English, most verb tenses in the Subjunctive Mood are similar or identical to the corresponding tenses in the Indicative Mood. It should be noted that verbs in the Subjunctive Mood do not modify, but have the same form regardless of the Subject.

The Simple Present Subjunctive and Simple Past Subjunctive of the verb to be are shown below. The Indicative forms are also given, for purposes of comparison. The Subjunctive forms which differ from the corresponding Indicative forms are shown in bold type.

The Simple Indicative and Subjunctive Tenses of the verb to be

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