Sunday, March 28, 2004
Hypothetically Speaking...
On Thursday I tried for the first time to teach the subjunctive mood in English. For some years now I have noticed that colloquial English offers alternative constructions for the subjunctive forms used in educated writing, but I have never seen a grammar book that deals with this usage issue. But it came to my mind again last night when I heard on television the expression, ‘I didn’t think it would have been a church.’ Here the hypothetical scenario of ‘it’ (in this case, a building housing an emaciated dog) being a church would be expressed in writing with ‘was’. What is happening here?
The issue has to be deal with from several directions. First, the nice neat subjunctive forms of Old English ended in singular -e or plural -en. The present subjunctive of ‘be’ was singular sie, plural sien or singular beo, plural beon. The past subjunctive of ‘be’ was wære (singular and plural). In Middle English the sie forms dropped out of the language, and the singular/plural distinction was lost due the phonological erosion of the endings -e and -en. As a result, the subject forms going into Early Modern English were an invariant be in the present subjunctive and invariant were in the past subjunctive. Likewise, other the present and past subjunctives of other verbs became indistinguishable from the infinitives and past tenses. However, the present subjunctive resembled the present indicative in all cases but the third person singular, so that indicative forms appeared, perhaps from the very beginning. Hence:
It appears that a distinct subjunctive form was preserved only after certain ‘trigger words’ (particularly verbs or adjectives followed by ‘that’), with some variation in usage (e.g. ‘whether’ is a trigger word for some people in certain expressions). In a sense, then, the subjunctive mood is a grammatical category which is no longer active in Modern Standard English, like the distinction between singular and plural second person pronouns.
But now we come back to ‘I didn’t think it would have been a church.’ The modal auxiliary would normally translates the conditional mood of other languages, so the English construction would + verb could be considered a periphrastic conditional. Its meaning is very similar to the subjunctive implication of possible reality, rather than an actual one, and this may provide one clue to the development of what I think is a periphrastic subjunctive. It frequently occurs in parallel constructions with the periphrastic conditional:
Here the periphrastic subjunctive would tell replaces the older told as a parallel to the periphrastic conditional would leave. Note the parallel past perfect equivalents:
Is this really the correct analysis? I don’t know, since I’m merely speculating. I may adjust this if I find new information. One issue that I wonder about is the role of the expression of desire conveyed by would. Did this play any role in the growth of the periphrastic subjunctive?
The issue has to be deal with from several directions. First, the nice neat subjunctive forms of Old English ended in singular -e or plural -en. The present subjunctive of ‘be’ was singular sie, plural sien or singular beo, plural beon. The past subjunctive of ‘be’ was wære (singular and plural). In Middle English the sie forms dropped out of the language, and the singular/plural distinction was lost due the phonological erosion of the endings -e and -en. As a result, the subject forms going into Early Modern English were an invariant be in the present subjunctive and invariant were in the past subjunctive. Likewise, other the present and past subjunctives of other verbs became indistinguishable from the infinitives and past tenses. However, the present subjunctive resembled the present indicative in all cases but the third person singular, so that indicative forms appeared, perhaps from the very beginning. Hence:
If he see them, he’ll give a shout > If he sees them, he’ll give a shout.
It appears that a distinct subjunctive form was preserved only after certain ‘trigger words’ (particularly verbs or adjectives followed by ‘that’), with some variation in usage (e.g. ‘whether’ is a trigger word for some people in certain expressions). In a sense, then, the subjunctive mood is a grammatical category which is no longer active in Modern Standard English, like the distinction between singular and plural second person pronouns.
But now we come back to ‘I didn’t think it would have been a church.’ The modal auxiliary would normally translates the conditional mood of other languages, so the English construction would + verb could be considered a periphrastic conditional. Its meaning is very similar to the subjunctive implication of possible reality, rather than an actual one, and this may provide one clue to the development of what I think is a periphrastic subjunctive. It frequently occurs in parallel constructions with the periphrastic conditional:
If he would tell them what they need to know, they would leave him alone.
Here the periphrastic subjunctive would tell replaces the older told as a parallel to the periphrastic conditional would leave. Note the parallel past perfect equivalents:
Standard: If he had told them...they would have left...
Periphrastic: If he would have told them...they would have left...
Constructions like ‘I didn’t think it would have been a church’ appear to be extensions of this new periphrastic subjunctive into contexts where it is not parallel with a conditional. In other words the grammatical category subjunctive has become active again.
Is this really the correct analysis? I don’t know, since I’m merely speculating. I may adjust this if I find new information. One issue that I wonder about is the role of the expression of desire conveyed by would. Did this play any role in the growth of the periphrastic subjunctive?
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