Hi all.

Forgive me for interrupting the very lively discussion
about the fate of grammar teaching, but I have a
question about the form of a verb in a that-clause
following the verb "prefer" (and others like it).
Which of the two verbs do you prefer (!):

(1) Would you prefer that we wait a little longer?

(2) Would you prefer that we waited a little longer?

I know that verbs of preference and verbs that express
a suggestion or a recommendation, among others,
typically require the base (or subjunctive) form of
the verb in the subordinate clause.  Examples like (1)
abound in reference books.  On the other hand, I've
looked for examples like (2) in Quirk et al., in Kolln
& Funk, and in other sources, but I couln't find any.

Notice that by changing the auxiliary/modal in the
main clause you get different acceptability results
(or at least that's my intuition):

(3) Do you prefer that we wait a little longer?

(4) ??Do you prefer that we waited a little longer?


(4) seems odd to me (but I'm not certain), whereas (3)
seems perfectly OK.  If the acceptability results are
accurate, then it appears that it's the conditional in
(1) that triggers either form. The auxiliary in (3)
and (4) disallows this type of variation.

Personally, I think that both (1) and (2) are used in
American English.  I don't think this is a dialectal
difference within North America, but I may be wrong
(I'm from Louisiana originally, where the Cajun
influence is strong).

I'd like to know what others think.  If anyone could
refer me to some sources that cover this topic, I
would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,

Kevin Lemoine, Editor
Ph.D. in Romance Linguistics



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