Subjunctive Mood

Introduction -- THE CATEGORY OF MOOD The meaning of this category is the attitude of the speaker, or writer towards the content of the sentence. It is expressed in the form of the verb. There are three moods in English-the indicative mood, the imperative mood and the subjunctive mood. The indicative mood indicates that what is said must be regarded as a fact, as something which has occurred or is occurring at the moment of speaking or will occur in the future. It may denote actions with different time-reference and different aspective characteristics. Therefore the indicative mood has a...
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Subjunctive Mood THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD Introduction -- THE CATEGORY OF MOOD The meaning of this category is the attitude of the speaker, or writer towards the content of thesentence. It is expressed in the form of the verb. There are three moods in English-the indicative mood, the imperative mood and the subjunctive mood. The indicative mood indicates that what is said must be regarded as a fact, as something which hasoccurred or is occurring at the moment of speaking or will occur in the future. It may denote actions withdifferent time-reference and different aspective characteristics. Therefore the indicative mood has a widevariety of tense and aspect forms in the active and passive voice. The imperative mood expresses a command or a request to perform an action addressed to somebody,but not the action itself. As it does not actually denote a specific action it has no tense category; the actionalways refers to the future. Aspect distinctions and voice distinctions are not characteristic of the imperativemood, although forms such as, be writing, be warned sometimes occur. The imperative mood form coincides with the plain stem of the verb, for example: Come here! Sitdown. The negative form is built by means of the auxiliary do. Do not take it away. Dont worry about the child. Dont be a fool. Note: Do is also used in commands or requests to make them more emphatic: Do come and stay withus. Do be quiet. In commands and requests addressed to a third person or persons the analytical form let... + infinitiveis used. When the person addressed is denoted by a personal pronoun, it is used in the objective case. Let usgo together. Let him finish his dinner first. Let Andrew do it himself. In negative sentences the analytical forms take the particle not without an auxiliary. Let us not argueon the matter. Let him not overestimate his chances. Let her not go any further. Note: In sentences like Dont let him go the negation refers to the verb let, which in this case fullyretains its original meaning of permission. The analytical forms differ in meaning from the synthetic forms, because their meaning is closelyconnected with the meaning of the pronoun included in the form. Thus let us do smth denotes an invitationor a joint action, not an order or a request. Let him do it retains to some extent the meaning of permission. Note: In the form let me (let me do it) the first person singular does not convey By imperative meaningand should not therefore be regarded as the imperative. It conveys the meaning of I am eager to do it, allowme to do it. The imperative mood is used only in imperative sentences and cant be used in questions. THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD The Subjunctive Mood 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 ofthe speaker to real facts. In Modem English the Subjunctive Mood has synthetic and analytical forms. Iwish I were ten years older, I said. (Braine) “Хотел бы я быть на десять лет старше”, — сказал я. I wishyou would speak rationally. (E. Bronte) Я хотел бы, чтобы вы говорили разумно. The synthetic forms of the Subjunctive Mood can be traced to the Old English period, when theSubjunctive Mood was chiefly expressed by synthetic forms. In Old English the Subjunctive Mood had aspecial set of inflections, different from those of the Indicative. In course of time most of the inflections were lost and the difference between the forms of theSubjunctive and those of the Indicative has almost disappeared. However, in Modern English mere are a fewsynthetic forms of the Subjunctive which have survived; they are as follows: the Present Subjunctive of allthe verbs and the Past Subjunctive only of the verb to be. I. The Present Subjunctive. In the Present Subjunctive the verb to be has the form be for all thepersons singular and plural, which differs from the corresponding forms of the Indicative Mood (the PresentIndefinite). In all other verbs the forms of the Present Subjunctive differ from the corresponding forms of theIndicative Mood only in the third person singular, which in the Present Subjunctive has no ending -s. The Present Subjunctive denotes an action referring to the present or future. This form is but seldomused in Modem English. It may be found in poetry and in elevated prose, where these forms are archaismsused with a certain stylistic aim. It is also used in scientific language and in the language of officialdocuments, where it is a living form. 1 THE USE OF THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD I. SIMPLE SENTENCES In simple sentences the synthetic forms of the Subjunctive Mood are more frequent than the analyticalform ...