Subjunctive

[Viktor77]

I'm glad you do so. The subjunctive is a beautiful mood and adds a unique layer to text and speech. English has lost most of its subjunctive and when someone uses it, it just has this lovely je ne sais pas.

What? English hasn't 'lost most of its subjunctive'. Its past subjunctive has merged with the indicative past in form but not in meaning for 'to be' in a lot of dialects, and the present subjunctive has been replaced by the indicative after 'if', but English still has a wealth of subjunctive constructions.

But not to the extent of Romance languages. The fact its use is semi-rare makes it, in my opinion, that much more delightful.

I'm glad you do so. The subjunctive is a beautiful mood and adds a unique layer to text and speech. English has lost most of its subjunctive and when someone uses it, it just has this lovely je ne sais pas.

It's je ne sais quoi.

Gah, of course it is. Slip of mind.

[Ser]

Italian and Occitan (and I think also Catalan) do not have a future subjunctive either; this tense is a specificity of "true" Iberian Romance languages.

As somebody said in that forum thread, it's possible that it's present in Old Romanian and Aromanian too. I don't know if this reflex of the Latin future anterior truly counts as a future subjunctive in the Spanish/Portuguese/Galician sense though...

http://www.archive.org/stream/grammaire ... 0/mode/2up
Note: he refers to Aromanian as "Macedonian".

But not to the extent of Romance languages. The fact its use is semi-rare makes it, in my opinion, that much more delightful.

YngNghymru's point is that it's not semi-rare, people use it all the time in present counterfactual conditional clauses i.e. "if I were". But yeah, it's used a lot less than in Romance...

[Yng]

But not to the extent of Romance languages. The fact its use is semi-rare makes it, in my opinion, that much more delightful.

There's a difference between being 'semi-rare' and not using it 'to the extent of the Romance languages'. Indeed, since it's used in every construction like 'it's time we washed the car', every true conditional 'if'-clause (arguably, anyway, though definitely in some dialects) and every time you use 'could' or 'would' in a conditional sense, what you really mean is 'I wish English had a clearly morphologically distinct subjunctive with its own endings in all verbs just like the Romance languages'.

[Travis B.]

But not to the extent of Romance languages. The fact its use is semi-rare makes it, in my opinion, that much more delightful.

There's a difference between being 'semi-rare' and not using it 'to the extent of the Romance languages'. Indeed, since it's used in every construction like 'it's time we washed the car', every true conditional 'if'-clause (arguably, anyway, though definitely in some dialects) and every time you use 'could' or 'would' in a conditional sense, what you really mean is 'I wish English had a clearly morphologically distinct subjunctive with its own endings in all verbs just like the Romance languages'.

One should not forget forms using were to with an infinitive in formal and literary English, which allows one to use the past subjunctive just about anywhere, including in a conditional fashion without requiring if.

[Viktor77]

But not to the extent of Romance languages. The fact its use is semi-rare makes it, in my opinion, that much more delightful.

There's a difference between being 'semi-rare' and not using it 'to the extent of the Romance languages'. Indeed, since it's used in every construction like 'it's time we washed the car', every true conditional 'if'-clause (arguably, anyway, though definitely in some dialects) and every time you use 'could' or 'would' in a conditional sense, what you really mean is 'I wish English had a clearly morphologically distinct subjunctive with its own endings in all verbs just like the Romance languages'.

Not in the least bit. English does not use the subjunctive very often. If-clauses are being indicativised, as are subordinate clauses, certain phrases, etc. By delightful in sound and expression I mean nothing to the effect of wishing English had endings like Romance (English is Germanic after all, it forms the subjunctive differently). What I mean is that I prefer the sound of "Lest you be late" to "Lest you are late" and "If I were you" to "If I was you" and "I wish he think more of his studies and less of girls" to "I wish he would think more of his studies and less of girls." The former of each has a much more refined and expressive sound and meaning.

[Izambri]

Italian and Occitan (and I think also Catalan) do not have a future subjunctive either; this tense is a specificity of "true" Iberian Romance languages.

Catalan too, yes. Present and past, in three groups:

Simple forms
The present de subjuntiu (canti) and the imperfet de subjuntiu (cantés)

Compound forms
The perfet de subjuntiu (hagi cantat) and the plusquamperfet de subjuntiu (hagués cantat)

Compound periphrastical forms
The passat perifràstic de subjuntiu (vagi cantar) and the passat anterior perifràstic de subjuntiu (vagi haver cantat).
These last two are extremely rare, even in poetry or literature: the pass. perif. de subj. is substituted by the imperfet de subjuntiu, while the plusquam. de subj. does the work of the pass. ant. perif. de subj.

[Yng]

Not in the least bit. English does not use the subjunctive very often. If-clauses are being indicativised, as are subordinate clauses, certain phrases, etc. By delightful in sound and expression I mean nothing to the effect of wishing English had endings like Romance (English is Germanic after all, it forms the subjunctive differently). What I mean is that I prefer the sound of "Least you be late" to "Least you are late" and "If I were you" to "If I was you" and "I wish he think more of his studies and less of girls" to "I wish he would think more of his studies and less of girls." The former of each has a much more refined and expressive sound and meaning.

You're not completely wrong, just mostly. You seem to've been taught that the subjunctive is just 'if I were', which is only one of the numerous uses of it (and the only major one, other than, as I mentioned, the present subjunctive in subordinate clauses with conjunctions other than 'that', which is actually disappearing). There are uses of the subjunctive which have no alternative other than the subjunctive, and there are uses of the subjunctive that are still reasonably current depending on 'lect. Whilst it's true that few people would use the present subjunctive after 'if' anymore, for example, 'if I were', 'I demand that he go' etc are still found in speech and in practically all decent formal writing. The latter has always been a part of my idiolect without me being aware of it, for example (whilst the former I had as a child uniformly, only slipping into free variation with the indicative as I came under the influence of other people my age).

Also, I think you mean 'lest', not 'least'.

[Astraios]

What I mean is that I prefer the sound of "Lest you be late" to "Lest you are late"

I've never ever heard the second one (not that people ever use that construction any more anyway), and it sounds really poor. I'd be inclined to say that it's fossilized already through not being used much.

and "If I were you" to "If I was you"

I've only ever heard Northerners say "was" in this context. (Technically, I'm from the north, but I don't speak like it.)

and "I wish he think more of his studies and less of girls" to "I wish he would think more of his studies and less of girls." The former of each has a much more refined and expressive sound and meaning.

Now the first one sounds wrong. I've never heard or read any English doing that.

[Yng]

"I wish he think more of his studies and less of girls" to "I wish he would think more of his studies and less of girls." The former of each has a much more refined and expressive sound and meaning.

I'm pretty sure the former is ungrammatical. 'I wish he thought more of his studies and less of girls', which is subjunctive. Not to mention the fact that 'would' is effectively a subjunctive auxiliary here anyway. An equivalent example that uses the present subjunctive, 'I demand that he think more of his studies', cannot take would: 'I demand that he would think more of his studies and less of girls.' I think this is because the 'present subjunctive' is generally used for things that haven't actually happened yet and are thus semantically 'future' or whatever.

[finlay]

and "If I were you" to "If I was you"

I've only ever heard Northerners say "was" in this context. (Technically, I'm from the north, but I don't speak like it.)

I always thought of "If I were you" as an exception to the rule of I + be + past → I was. I can hardly bring myself to say "If I were" or "If he were" in any other context because it sounds completely wrong to me, as though I'm a Yorkshireman starting sentences with "When I were a lad".

edit: That and "as it were", which I kinda picked up from a (Yorkshire-born) chemistry teacher who said it all the time, and various other places. I'm fairly sure it's a real phrase, anyway. But it's still an exception, a set phrase.

[TaylorS]

Yesterday in the university student union I overheard someone saying "We better get going lest he fuck up again". I thought the use of the formal sounding "lest" in that context was pretty funny.

[sarcasmo]

I was under the impression that "If I were you" was the imperfect, because the following clause is conditional.

I may be confusing this with French, though: "Si j'étais toi, je lui parlerais." "If I were you, I would talk to him."

[Niedokonany]

I've noticed that the Polish conditional has certain subjunctive-ish uses (though it's more optional than, say, in Spanish and not as widespread, it affects some similar contexts, though): Nie sądzę, żeby to było prawdą. "I don't think it's true", Nie wydaje mi się, żeby je mieli. "It doesn't seem to me like they could have them". Żeby... było (być "be") and żeby... mieli (mieć "have") are basically conditional structures (especially from a historical perspective, synchronically there are some subtle details making an analysis thereof more complicated) where the conditional marker by has been incorporated into a complementizer że.

[Alternatively it could be analyzed as certain (negative) contexts favoring the purposive subordinator żeby and the past tense, rather than the plain complementizer że and the present/non-past tense.]

[Astraios]

I was under the impression that "If I were you" was the imperfect, because the following clause is conditional.

If it was the imperfect, it'd be "If I was you".

[Yng]

I was under the impression that "If I were you" was the imperfect, because the following clause is conditional.

I may be confusing this with French, though: "Si j'étais toi, je lui parlerais." "If I were you, I would talk to him."

Yeah. In French, conditional clauses go si + subject + imperfect verb, subject + conditional verb. In English, we traditionally at least used the subjunctive in the protasis, which is the 'if' part. The preterite indicative and subjunctive are identical in all verbs apart from 'to be', though. The subjunctive 'were', 'had', 'should' and possibly 'could' are distinguished by the fact that they can effectively replace 'if' in a kind of inversion structure:

'Were I you...'
'Had he gone...'
?'Could he only see' (I've seen this but personally find it a bit ungrammatical)
'Should you see him' (the least formal of these for me)

[Ser]

By the way, how is the subjunctive of "If I were you" usually called? "Past subjunctive"?

?'Could he only see' (I've seen this but personally find it a bit ungrammatical)

"Could you get it done by tomorrow, please?"

[Travis B.]

By the way, how is the subjunctive of "If I were you" usually called? "Past subjunctive"?

That is what I have usually seen it called, even though I have seen other things that say that calling it is not, strictly speaking, correct - but which do not really provide better names for it either.

[Yng]

By the way, how is the subjunctive of "If I were you" usually called? "Past subjunctive"?

?'Could he only see' (I've seen this but personally find it a bit ungrammatical)

"Could you get it done by tomorrow, please?"

No, that's interrogative inversion, thus the question mark. If you remove the inversion it becomes 'You could get it done by tomorrow', without an 'if'.

[Astraios]

Maybe this would help:

Were I you = If I were you
Had he gone = If he had gone
Could he only see = If he could only see
Should you see him = If you should/happen to see him

As YngNghymru said, they're all subjunctive, and they're all replacing an "if".

[Yng]

Oh, also, 'be', the present subjunctive, can be used like this, though it sounds really awful to me outside of set phrase-y type things:

'Be there any man here...'
'Be it man or woman...'

Also a possible example with regular verbs in 'come rain or shine', but I'm not sure about that one.

[el morón]

Interestingly, my dialect of Portuguese retains future and past subjunctive, but is losing the present subjunctive (though this is still seen as a feature of the stigmatized variety of favela Portuguese). For instance, quer que eu vá?[1] has been/is being replaced, for a lot of usually lower-income speakers, with quer que eu vou?[2]. Future and past subjunctive, however, are not endangered in any way that I know of, at least IMD.
[1] "Do you want me to go?", using present subjunctive.
[2] "Do you want me to go?", using present indicative.


As to OP's actual question, I must say I do not know the exact answer, but I do know that future subjunctive shares roots with preterit perfect indicative and preterit subjunctive (soube-soubesse-souber, from saber "to know", trouxe-trouxesse-trouxer, from trazer "to bring", quis-quisesse-quiser, from querer "to want", etc.), which, in my humble opinion, should be an indicator that future subjunctive is not a recent innovation (which would most probably use the root found in the infinitive). Notice also that these verbs, all belonging to the 2nd conjugation, have /E/ before the future subjunctive marker -r, which I believe may implicate they do not come from the indicative, which would have a closed vowel, /e/ -- and I don't think the anomaly stems from vowel harmony, because generally only front vowels pushed /e/ and /o/ back towards /E/ and /O/, which is not the case with verbs like trouxer (cf. bebo, /e/ "I drink", bebes, /E/, "you drink", from beber, "to drink").

[Radius Solis]

and "If I were you" to "If I was you"

I've only ever heard Northerners say "was" in this context. (Technically, I'm from the north, but I don't speak like it.)

I always thought of "If I were you" as an exception to the rule of I + be + past → I was. I can hardly bring myself to say "If I were" or "If he were" in any other context because it sounds completely wrong to me, as though I'm a Yorkshireman starting sentences with "When I were a lad".

What, even in things like these?
- if I were taller I wouldn't bang my head so much
- if he were here right now I'd smack him
- they treat him as though he were stupid
- as though I were a Yorkshireman starting sentences with ...

These may not be default in various dialects... but I'm very surprised if they sound deeply wrong to you, because they are entirely normal Standard English. For myself at least, I find there to be a slight distinction in meaning, too: "As though I'm a Yorkshireman" only casts serious doubt on whether you're a Yorkshireman, while "As though I were a Yorkshireman" definitively claims that you are not:

I might or might not be a Yorkshireman, but he treats me as though I [am / *were]!
I am not a Yorkshireman, but he treats me as though I [?am / were]!

[finlay]

In practice I avoid it altogether. My perception of my idiolect is screwed up after studying linguistics and living away from my hometown for so long that I don't really know what was present beforehand and what's present now. Indeed I think I wrote "I'm" there just to avoid using "I were", or "I was".

My point is my 'native' idiolect, if there is such a thing, isn't really standard English, although what I actually speak is probably basically standard. Basically I have the conflicting voices in my head saying that "I was" is wrong in that situation (because it's not "standard") and and that "I were" is also wrong (because it breaks agreement rules).

Also, I'm not sure if I have this distinction you speak of, but again, I dunno if my perception is skewed and I actually do. There's also another point which is that those sentences you've written sound wrong to me with "as though", and I would substitute "as if" – and with "as if", I would definitely say "I am" in both cases. I'm not sure with "as though".

[Ser]

I just learned that the future subjunctive is still alive in the informal language in some countries, particularly Venezuela, where it replaces the imperfect subjunctive.