In Subjunctives^x, Indirect speech^x

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... The "went" in #2 has nothing to do with the past in terms of time. (Though you might say that the...

With all the wanderings of this thread, I am not sure of the question. Regarding these sentences: "i wish i could tell you what this is" (this present unidentifiable object) "i wish i could tell you what this was" (the same object) "i wish i could tell you how i feel" ...

You are right, those are not really subjunctives but... they are kinds of subjunctives! If those "was" are not past tenses, what else could they be? The meaning is like the one of the subjunctive tense. Rothkowitz wrote: do you see...my question is still unanswered Sorry, but the question...

well not really you see this is not a case of subjunctive....as i said in my first postr (cite fowler here)...there is no sequence of moods in english... therefore, for example, we do not say "if i were to say i were happy" we say, instead, "if i were to say i was happy..." you...

Also, I would say "I wish I could say he was important to me." (But he's not important to me, he did nothing for me, that ***) "I wish I could tell him he's important to me." (He's important to me, but I can't tell him that) As you see, these subjunctives are difficult to understand and...

i can't seem to find a hard-and-fast rule for a situation like this: "I wish I could say (that) I was happy" (if the speaker is attempting to express that he/she IS NOT HAPPY RIGHT NOW) would it be incorrect to express this as: "I wish I could say I'm happy".... one hears this sort of thing...

To keep up the actual aim of the thread: Another problem that I had while learning English was the backshift of tenses in Indirect Speech. While in German you would always use the subjunctive when you want to express something in Indirect Speech, in English you've to backshift every tense. This...