Search results for 'tag:Subjunctives tag:Expressions' matching tags 'Subjunctives' and 'Expressions'

Re: Noun clause or Adejctive clause

Fandorin — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:57:34 GMT

Subjunctive is used when the action is not REAL or PREFFERED. And it's rarely used in contemporary English, in idiomatic expression or in more formal speech.

Relative clause (Subordinate Clause, Adjectival Clause ) is used when you want to give more information about event or person or thing is described in the sentence.

Re: would have had

CalifJim — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:23:38 GMT

Kooyeen
You never taught me those conditionals!

Maybe I thought you were better off not knowing. Or maybe you didn't ask.

Kooyeen
use the simple past instead of the subjunctive formed with the past perfect, in informal and casual English?

No. While it's true that people do often use the indicative for the subjunctive, that is not at issue here.

These are truly indicative all the way through. There is nothing subjunctive about them. The simple past in the if-clause is truly past in time, not a present hypothesis. Usually both clauses are in the past.

If you got there at 6, you were way too early. I'll bet no one was there.

If it was not OK with him for me to take the books, he certainly didn't show it.

If the suspect was at the Blue Gardenia at 8:00, he wasn't in the vicinity of the crime. Someone else must be the criminal.

The teacher was impossible to please. If you said "grammatical", he showed it was ungrammatical. If you said "ungrammatical", he proved it was grammatical. You couldn't win. If you took the course, you probably hated it as much as I did.

There's one thing you can be sure of: If a hurricane passed through that area, there was damage. No doubt about it.

It was well known in our town: If Brian was invited to a party, he got drunk, and if he got drunk, there was trouble.

Do you remember how Barney got so fat that year? If it was in the fridge, he ate it, no matter what "it" was!

Less formally, many of the main clauses above could have been said with "would have" with hardly any change in meaning, e.g., If it was in the fridge, he would have eaten it. Or even just "would": If it was in the fridge, he would eat it. (These use the "would of habit".)

_____

If he saw the bridge through the fog, it would have been a miracle.
I'd take the above example as the backshifted version of...
If he sees the bridge through the fog, it would be a miracle.
...and so "saw" should be taken as a simple past tense with the same meaning as the subjunctive "had seen". If he saw the bridge (but I don't think he did), it would have been a miracle!

Yes. Your backshift interpretation seems right to me. But I don't see this as necessarily subjunctive. It comes off as a sort of borderline case to my ear.

PS. ... would have baked you a cake is the usual expression!

Re: imperative mood in the third person?

Kooyeen — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:35:11 GMT

Hey Tanit,
I guess what you call "third person imperative" is not an imperative, but actually a subjunctive in Italian. (Congiuntivo: Che io tocchi, che tu toccassi, che lui tocchi... ok, I don't know Italian, sorry, don't laugh, LOL)

And the only way I have found to translate those kinds of expressions the most literal way as possible is using the verb "may", or "let", or something else, depending on the context.

Che vada all'inferno! -> May he go to hell!
Nessuno tocchi Caino! -> Nobody touch Caino!

In informal English, I would use completely different structures than in Italian though, and I am used to that already.

Re: Hey Guys, Need Help

Tanit — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:37:47 GMT

Hi,

New2grammar
Could you try to convince me why the abrupt change of tense makes sense?

Why should it make sense? After all, we're talking about English grammar!
Anyway, somebody says it's an instance of unreal past ...

BBC Learning English

We sometimes use past tenses to describe things in the present or future that are imagined or unreal.
It's time we went.
We are using It's time... here to say that something is not happening, but it should be happening. Compare also the following:
It's time we left. Our son will be home soon and he doesn't have a house key.
It's about time you started looking for a job. You can't depend on us all the time. It's high time you started to fend for yourself.

...we can use the construction it's time to or it's time for + object + to as alternatives to the unreal use of past forms to express this idea:
It's time for you to think seriously about what you want to do in your life.
It's time you thought seriously about what you want to achieve in your life.
It's time to reflect on how you want your life to proceed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv347.shtml

UNREAL PAST

The past tense is sometimes used in English to refer to an 'unreal' situation. So, although the tense is the past, we are usually talking about the present, e.g. in a Type 2 conditional sentence:
If an elephant and a mouse fell in love, they would have many problems.
Although fell is in the past tense, we are talking about a hypothetical situation that might exist now or at any time, but we are not referring to the past. We call this use the unreal past.
Other situations where this occurs are:

after other words and expressions like'if'(supposing, if only, what if);
after the verb 'to wish';
after the expression 'I'd rather..'
(http://www.edufind.com/English/Grammar/IF10.cfm)

... and somebody says it's subjunctive. See also:
http://www.englishforums.com/English/ChangingTenses/dqcdx/post.htm
http://www.englishforums.com/English/WhichSentencesAreCorrect/zjbhp/post.htm

Re: I regretted that I hadn't been kinder to her while she had been

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:33:31 GMT

--Thank you Avangi. I see your idea.
The expression using Subjunctive would be like this; I wished I had been kinder to her while [when] she was still alive.

By the way, "were still alive" can be used instead of "had been still alive"?

Re: subjunctive

Avangi — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:01:03 GMT

Newguest
So you say that the phrase "to remember" changes the sentence into a declarative one.

Hi Newguest,

I hope I'm right on this. Both versions are "declarative voice." The sentences in examples nine and twelve are "indicative mood" as they stand. The versions I gave are "subjunctive mood." I shouldn't have mentioned "declarative" (as opposed to "imperative," "interrogative," "exclamatory"). I intended it as a clarification, but it didn't turn out that way.

Part of the fun is figuring out if a sentence really is subjunctive, which I'd say explains why these were included in the exercise.

N2g, It's more like a list of seemingly unrelated situations and expressions that make a sentence subjunctive. I'd say you have to learn them one at a time. - (Later! - I'll try to get back.)

- A.

Re: subjunctive

New2grammar — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:30:37 GMT

Hi Avangi, could you explain what make a sentence subjunctive?

Are there special expressions that automatically make a sentence subjunctive?

Thanks!

Re: Want to know more about conjunctive

Anonymous — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:57:36 GMT

Thanks, paco2004, for the information on the subjunctive in English. You know more about it than 99% of English speakers. No one understands the subjunctive in English because it is so subtle and complex, and the rules for using would, should, could, can, might and may are so subtle that even linguists are not sure. English speakers simply use these conditional words because they know them from childhood, and they use them by "feel", and rarely use them incorrectly. The subjunctive is dying in English, and I have seen it die slowly during the last half of the twentieth century, more and more. Few people bother with it other than to use some of the common words mentioned above to specify various degrees of ability or non-ability. Sometimes the older expressions which seem to use the subjunctive might actually be in a mood that is called the "jussive mood" in latin grammar. the jussive mood hasn't actually been defined for English grammar, but still it is (or was) there in some expressions ("Let there be light"). Many of the fossilized or idiomatic older expressions are subjunctive or jussive, but they survive just by sound and no longer by logic or by the rules of grammar, because nobody can figure them out!

Re: case of subjunctive in the 'if' clause?

CalifJim — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:15:22 GMT

It's not subjunctive. It's the modal use of need. Modal need can occur in non-assertive contexts. Modals never take the s in the first person singular of the present tense the way non-modal verbs do. In that way they resemble subjunctive forms, which are also missing the s.

The subject of the clause is missing, however (if it need be), but that's because if need be has become a fixed idiomatic expression.

Re: Is there any difference of nuance between the two?

CalifJim — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:17:31 GMT

difference between the two sentences of 'It is high time that I was in bed' and 'It is high time that I were in bed.'

You need ... was .... As far as I know, the expressions It is (high) time (that) do not take the subjunctive (I were) in modern English.

CJ