By Difference between, Subjunctives

For your information, here is what Wikipedia says:The terms present subjunctive and past subjunctive can be misleading, as they describe forms rather than meanings: the past and present subjunctives are so called because they resemble the past and present indicatives, respectively, but the...

Hi Bokeh, Becasue of your reply, it made me take a second look at the original question. I also did some research and found this paper written on the subject of Semantic Composition of Subjunctive Conditionals by Michela Ippolito of MIT/Tübingen University. I am not completely sure if I...

Yes. You can call what follows It's time an unreal past or a past subjunctive. (But that's not what It's time is called. I don't know if that has a name -- unless you call it "an expression that triggers the use of the unreal past"!) Your take on the article is completely correct. Is...

CalifJim wrote: I don't know of any special name for the expressions It's time and wish. CJ Well I did some work on the internet and got some useful links. You said that you don't know any specific name for the expression but I've found one. Please verify is it correct or not. It's called...

CalifJim wrote: «He's running as if he's being chased by a tiger» I mean, is present subjunctive ok here?Ant_222, Not sure what you mean here. Present subjunctive would give us: He's running as if he be being chased by a tiger. That won't work at all. CJ "He's running as if he's being...

No, I'm not a teacher.As I've said before, I know that traditional grammar calls it the subjunctive. My point is that the distribution of the "if I were" form is very different from the "I demand that it be done" form. It makes sense, from a linguistic point of view, to give them different names....

According to The Oxford Companion to the English Language, "were" is usually used in "if I were you." But in other cases it has been replaced by "was", bringing it in line with other verbs, where the simple past tense is used for expressing hypotheses about the past and future, eg "if I only...

Yoong Liat wrote: 1. She walks as though she is drunk. 2. She walks as though she was drunk. 3. She walks as though she were drunk. What is the difference between the three sentences? I believe #2 and #3 have the same meaning. This website may be helpful in answering your...

Yoong Liat wrote: I remember reading in one of my books on English usage many, many years ago that there is a difference between He walks as though he were drunk and He walks as though he is drunk. But I wasn't sure that my memory served me right. After posting, the more I thought, the more I...

I remember reading in one of my books on English usage many, many years ago that there is a difference between He walks as though he were drunk and He walks as though he is drunk. But I wasn't sure that my memory served me right. After posting, the more I thought, the more I felt I must continue...