A colleague asked me the other day about the use of the subjunctive in British English. The subjunctive mood is a fairly infrequent feature of American English that finds its way into advanced grammar books and classes. It is used following certain verbs and adjectives that express demands or suggestions, for example:
- We demand that taxes be lowered
- The teacher recommended that she study harder.
- It is essential that the class finish on time.
In the (projected) noun clauses, the verb in the subjunctive mood appears in its base form (like an infinitive without to). This means the subjunctive is only actually visible after third person singular subjects in certain tenses, as well as all passive verbs (be lowered). In other contexts, the subjunctive looks exactly like the indicative (the “normal” mood), so you could use the subjunctive without ever realizing it.
Most grammar books point to an interesting difference between British and American English here: British English no longer uses the subjunctive in this structure. Typically, students are told to use should instead:
- We recommend that everyone should drink more water.
The question was whether should is always used, especially when the core meaning of this modal verb conflicts with the meaning of the main (introductory) clause. That is, can you require (=insist) that someone should (=ought to, but not essential) do something?
I’ve been playing with the BYU interface to the British National Corpus to answer this, and the results are a little surprising. These searches were limited to the written section of the BNC.
For example, “it is [=necessary] that he|she|it” (the [=necessary] tells the corpus to include synonyms of necessary, like essential and crucial) is followed by:
- 5 indicative verbs (is, rests)
- 1 should
- 1 subjunctive (comprehend)
However, “[=require] that he|she|it” is followed by:
- 14 subjunctives
- 13 indicatives
- 10 shoulds
And “[=recommend] that he|she|it” takes:
- 117 indicatives
- 8 shoulds
- 5 subjunctives
This suggests that (no subjunctive because suggest is just reporting results not making any imposition on you!):
- The indicative is more common that should in these structures in British English.
- The word should probably carries very little of its normal modal meaning in these clauses.
- The subjunctive does exist in written British English, although it is indeed rare, with the possible exception of verbs of necessity, where it is a little more common.
As ever, there are a few caveats:
- The BNC does include some American texts, I believe, which I couldn’t filter out. In addition, some of the “academic” corpus could well be drawn from journals that use American English as a standard or at least publish the work of American scholars. This might account for some of the subjunctives.
- My search only captured clauses using he/she/it. I would need a more sophisticated search to include every possible context for the subjunctive, including passives, and other singular subjects (everyone, something, singular nouns, and proper names).
- The texts in the BNC are a little old now, so these results may reflect somewhat conservative usage. The present-day use of the subjunctive may be even lower.
If you know how to do these searches, please improve my description!
All of these structures, however, are far less frequent than the grammatically simpler form using a non-finite clause: it’s important to read the directions; I asked him to pass the salt; proofreading your blog posts is essential. So, why do we insist that students use (aha!) it?
No, really, why?
Update (3/1/11): Thanks to Leo Schmitt for featuring this post on TESOL’s Grammatically Speaking!
For more corpus-based grammar tips, watch for my new ESL grammar textbook for graduate students and researchers, coming in 2012 from the University of Michigan Press.
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Hi Nigel
I read with interest your piece about the subjunctive, particularly the bit about ‘using the subjunctive without ever realizing it’! To be clear about this: “I insisted that he pay on time” is clearly subjunctive with its use of “pay” instead of “pays”. But if we switch to 3rd person plural: “I insisted that they pay on time”, are you saying that this is also a subjunctive clause even though it looks indicative? If that’s the case, how can tell what the speaker’s/writer’s intentions are – perhaps they mean it to be indicative; perhaps they mean it to be subjunctive – who knows? Or is it the case that this type of clause is always subjunctive by virtue of its structure or its semantics?
Thanks
William
William,
Good question — yes, the clause is still subjunctive even though there is no orthographic or phonological difference between the indicative and subjunctive forms of plural active verbs (except “be”). That is, they’re spelled and pronounced the same.
The only way you would know it’s subjunctive is by analogy with the same clause with a third-person singular subject — so if it would be subjunctive with “it” then it’s subjunctive with “they” and all other subjects.
We obviously can’t draw any conclusion about the speaker/writer’s intentions in these cases because there’s no choice to be made between indicative and subjunctive forms, and when there’s no choice, there’s no difference at any level of grammatical meaning.
I’m not sure there’s ever a whole lot of experiential difference between the two anyway (between “She insisted that he pay/s”) — more likely, there is a difference in interpersonal meaning (I’m telling you that I’m the sort of person who uses the subjunctive “correctly”, albeit unconsciously often).
Does that answer your question?
Nigel
As an American speaker, I can say that there’s a huge “experiential difference” between the subjunctive and the indicative. If I say “She insisted that he pays,” to me that means that “she” is simply asserting that he normally pays — perhaps we’re arguing over our observations of how frequently he pays, and she’s telling me he normally does so. “She insisted that he pay” means she told him to pay. In the case of a third-person plural sentence, the subjunctive reading feels different from the indicative reading in just the same way, even though the verb form doesn’t change.
Incidentally, I only today learned that British English prefers the use of “should.” To me, “She insisted that he should pay” has yet a third meaning — it retains the usual modal force of “should,” so to me it doesn’t mean that she ordered him to pay, but rather they had an argument over what is normally proper or expected, i.e. what he “should” do. By the way, would a British speaker retain the word ‘that’ in that sentence or would “She insisted he should pay” sound more natural? Does it make any difference in how the sentence is likely to be interpreted?
Karen,
Good point — I think what’s happening in your AmE example is that there are two different meanings of the verb insist:
(1) insist = maintain that something happened
(2) insist = demand that something happen (subjunctive!)
Type (1) is a saying/thinking (reporting) verb. I don’t have my grammar book at home, and I can’t remember the functional name for type (2), but I think it’s some kind of action (material) verb.
Meaning (1) is always followed by the indicative; meaning (2) takes the subjunctive in AmE. A similar example is suggest (“The paper suggests that there is a link between X and Y” / “The paper suggests that something be done.”)
You’re also right about the alternative interpretation of should, although I suspect that’s less frequent. We would probably put stress on the modal “She insisted that he should pay”), which I think is a possible sentence in AmE, too.
Omission of “that” … the usual pattern is to retain “that” in writing but omit it in speech. I can’t figure out how to do the corpus search right now. Will try again when my brain is more awake! Thanks for your comment.
I’m American and I would almost never use “should” in those situations; I would use the present subjunctive form because it sounds better:
He demanded I attend the hearing.
They insisted he come alone.
It is important that we not jump the gun.
It’s best if he stay in the car.
If it be possible, may I have an iced tea?
If it be no trouble, might I come with you?
If it please everyone, I’ll go.
It’s vital that he speak good English.
It’s about time I be freed.
May God strike me dead if I be lying.
This is how I say all of the above and have said these in speech and school papers so I consider them to be subjunctive. Thanks for the article.
Nick, I agree that the subjunctive mood probably feels more natural to American speakers — or, at least writers — in most of the sentences, with the exception of the “if” clauses. “If it be possible” and “if it be no trouble” are probably not acceptable usage today; I don’t think they are even archaic subjunctives since they are real conditionals. “It it please …” is an archaic subjunctive, but has fallen out of use, except perhaps in legal contexts (if it please Your Honor …). The past subjunctive form clearly still exists in the conditional (if I were you …), but the present form has basically disappeared.
You should certainly use the first batch in writing, but I wouldn’t recommend asking “if it please you, may I borrow your notes” in the school hallways …
Thanks for your comment, and enjoy the blog!
Interesting piece. I just did a similar analysis looking at US English.