Tense marking has to be 'doubled' to get subjunctive meaning:

Hypothetical statements or wishes about the present can be expressed in
either basic-verb form or past-tense verb form (at least after 'would'
clauses). To get irrealis statements about the past, you use past perfect:

1. I would prefer that we wait a little longer.
2. I would prefer that we waited a little longer. (This is not a
statement about the past; it's a statement of a preference about the present.)
3. I would prefer that we had waited a little longer. (This is a
statement about the past; something that the speaker wishes had happened
but it didn't happen.)

The last sentence sounds a bit weird to me with the first clause in the
present, but it still is a meaningful sentence to me.

Anybody share these intuitions?

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Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-259
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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"Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
but that's not why people do it normally"  -            Frank  Oppenheimer
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