In case

We've done this before, Hela-- none of your sentences is subjunctive:

I. There are two forms of the subjunctive, called present and past.

-- The present subjunctive in all persons is 'be' for the verb 'to be', and the base form for all other verbs. Thus:
---- They demand (that) I be quiet.
---- They demanded (that) I be quiet.
---- They have requested that he leave the country.
---- They will be requesting that he not leave the country.

-- The past subjunctive exists only in were as a past form of 'to be':
---- If I were better informed, I could teach English.


II. There are two main uses of the present subjunctive, the mandative and the formulaic.

-- The mandative subjunctive is used in a 'that'-clause after a verb, adjective or noun of demand, recommendation, proposal, intention and similar notions:
---- I insisted that she stay for dinner.
---- It is necessary that the Eiffel Tower be repainted.
---- The requirement that the president resign for defalcation is fixed in stone.

-- The formulaic subjunctive is used in certain set expressions:
---- Come what may, I shall always be your friend.
---- God bless America.

III. There is one main use for the past subjunctive ('were'). It is used in conditional and concessive clauses and in subordinate clauses after 'wish' and 'suppose':
---- If I were you, I would not quit the day job.
---- He acts as though he were the lord of the realm.
---- I wish he were not so demanding.

It also appears in the stock phrase, 'as it were': He was, as it were a little dictator.


Those are the limits of the use of the subjunctive in English. Other forms of expression exist as equivalents of the subjunctive, such as:

I insist that he should finish quickly.
I wish I was dead.



1) a) Take an umbrella in case it RAINS. INDICATIVE.
b) Take an umbrella in case it SHOULD RAIN. 'SHOULD' CONDITIONAL.
c) Take an umbrella in case it RAINED. INCORRECT AND MEANINGLESS.

2) a) Let’s stay at home in case Granny SHOULD DECIDE to come. 'SHOULD' CONDITIONAL.

b) I took my violin in case I SHOULD HAVE a chance to play. 'SHOULD' CONDITONAL.

Hi Paco,

I am curious too-- can you quantify your L1 in this way? English stubbornly resists such mathematics, as it relies far too much on nonverbal cues and context. There are a few exceptions, such as the adverbs of frequency, which grammarians love to show off in a neat, ordered range from 'never' to 'always'-- but assigning percentages to them is an exercise in futility.

Here, in any case, I made no comment regarding relative probabilities, did I? If I were forced under pain of the rack to order your Pi(R) and Ps(R), I would have to say that Pi(R)~Ps(R) -- and then I would probably receive one more twist of the rack.

Our equivalent of man ga ichi ni is pretty much the same: 'She is so ugly that she has only a one-in-a-million chance of getting married'.

The simple 'if it should' is not nearly so extreme, it just reflects the unknown future.

No trouble; that's why we are all here: to talk about these things. I will stick to your question, though--

'What is the difference in meaning or in speaker's attitude among the following four?'

Pragmatically (i.e. within the presumed context-- two acquaintances readying their themoses and insect repellent), no difference. The speaker doesn't know whether it will rain (who does?!), but s/he understands that rain ruins picnics. More subtly, the speaker of (1)-- aside from being more colloquial-- probably sees rain as more likely than the other three speakers.

But they are basically just four ways of giving the same opinion. The grammars can all be argued, but the semantics are functionally inseparable by any real standards or 'percentages' of probability.