Temporal Relations within the Oblique Moods

OBLIQUE MOODS

MOOD is the form of the verb, which shows in what relation to reality the speaker places the action expressed by the predicate verb. There are the following moods in English:

THE INDICATIVE MOOD presents actions as real facts in the present, past or future. Indicative mood forms distinguish the categories of tense (present, past, future), aspect (common, continuous), correlation (non-perfect, perfect), voice (active, passive), number and person.

THE IMPERATIVE MOOD expresses a command of a request to perform an action addressed to somebody, but not the action itself. The Imperative Mood has practically only one form, which coincides with the stem of the verb (e.g. Do. Begin).

THE OBLIQUE MOODS express unreal (hypothetical) or problematic actions. Unreal actions are those contradicting reality; problematic actions may be viewed as desired, necessary, possible, supposed, imaginary, etc.

There are different forms of the verb employed for this purpose, and they may be grouped as Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II, the Conditional Mood and the Suppositional Mood. Subjunctive II and the Conditional Mood express unreal (hypothetical) actions, i.e. contradicting reality; Subjunctive I and the Suppositional Mood express problematic actions. All the forms of the mentioned above Moods can be presented in the following table:

Mood Form	Subjunctive I	Subjunctive II	the Conditional Mood	the Suppositional Mood
Non-perfect	be come go	were came went	would/should be would/should come would/sould go	should be should come should go
Perfect	—	had been had come had gone	would/should have been would/should have come would/should have gone	should have been should have come should have gone

Oblique mood forms distinguish the categories of aspect, correlation and voice, but they have no tense category. Otherwise stated, they cannot refer the action directly to the present, past or future. They can only indicate if the action of the verb in the Oblique Mood coincides in time with the action of the indicative mood form in the principal clause, or precedes it. This relative expression of time-reference is based on the category of correlation, that is, a non-perfect form of Subjunctive II, the Conditional or the Suppositional Mood (see the table above) in the subordinate clause denotes an action simultaneous with the action expressed by the indicative mood form in the principal clause:

I wish I were home ( were denotes a present action which is simultaneous with the present action).

I was wishing I were still there (were denotes a past action since it is simultaneous with the past action).

Perfect forms of Subjunctive II, the Conditional and the Suppositional Mood indicate priority to the action expressed by the indicative mood form in the principal clause. So perfect forms always express past actions:

I wish I hadn’t got into this mess ( hadn’t got denotes a past action which is prior to the present action).

If there is no indicative mood form in the sentence than a non-perfect oblique mood form directly refers the action to the present or future:

I wouldn’t do a thing like that without telling you.

If wishes were horses beggars would ride.

Perfect oblique mood forms refer the actions to the past:

Ten years ago, Maurice wouldn’t have spoken like this.

If we’ d been caught last night – what would have happened to us?

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