In Subjunctives^x, Past tenses^x

Marius Hancu wrote: Tidus wrote:No. Not on its own it doesn't. If I had to choose.... expresses obligation. If I were to choose.... does not.Right. If I were to choose....shows two potentialities (not obligations), IMO:1. That I am offered or that I decide (by myself, not forced) to make a...

Marius Hancu wrote:Incho:See this "official" site, on the subjunctive were: http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/061.html(When using "past tense" in the above, I meant the subjunctive, which is identical in form with the indicative past tense; sorry for the confusion. Thanks, Goodman.). Hi...

Incho: See this "official" site, on the subjunctive were: http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/061.html (When using "past tense" in the above, I meant the subjunctive, which is identical in form with the indicative past tense; sorry for the confusion. Thanks, Goodman.).

MrPedantic wrote:Even though the form of the past subjunctive is the same as the form of the simple past, you can distinguish the two by their function: 1. He went to London. 2. If he went to London, he would...Are we not talking about grammatical categories? These verb forms are exactly the...

Then it would be the only verb with a past subjunctive form. And it would still not function like the subjunctive - actually maybe I should say it doesn't have the same distribution as the subjunctive.That is, we haveI demand that it be donebut if we put this into the past tense, we don't get*I...

There are two reasons why some linguists call "were" in "if I were" the irrealis instead of the past subjunctive.1It doesn't function like the subjunctive:I demand that it be done."be" here is the subjunctive. You can put any verb in the subjunctive:I demand that it cease.But if you substitute...

The "were" form is often wrongly called a past subjunctive, but of course "it were done" is not a past tense of "it be done". I wouldn't agree with this writer. Past tense forms that turn up in e.g. conditionals are the descendants of Old/Middle English past subjunctive forms. MrP

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 But in other cases it has been replaced by "was", bringing it in line with other verbs, where the simple past tense is used for expressing hypotheses about the past and future, eg "if I only...

Believer wrote: Hi, I was looking at the Quiet Time book. Please tell me what this is if it not a subjunctive? A normal sentence? Joshua had a similar expreience that Moses had when he confronted God in the burning bush. Joshua follow the request of the commander of the Lord's army demanding...

If I knew what you doing. green = present tense, present meaning blue = past tense, past meaning orange = past tense, present or past meaning red = I doubt that this would be used. (Maybe the were in the last sentence could be were. I'm undecided.) CJ