As I said, I never gave it any thought until Karl's message gave me an "aha" moment.
So when people say "Lord(,) help us," are they using the imperative or subjunctive?
Dick Veit
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Susan van Druten
Sent: Fri 3/14/2008 9:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Subjunctive
You mean you thought it was direct address: God, bless the queen.
Do it now. Hurry. Faster.
On Mar 14, 2008, at 2:44 PM, Veit, Richard wrote:
> And all these years I have been incorrectly assuming "God bless the
> queen" was imperative. I learn a lot from this list.
>
> Dick
>
> ________________________________
>
> Richard Veit
> Department of English
> University of North Carolina Wilmington
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Karl Hagen
> Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 3:14 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Subjunctive
>
> At the risk of perpetuating the pointless dispute, I should note
> that I
> agree with you about the counterfactual "were" not deserving the
> name of
>
> a subjunctive.
>
> However, I do think it is justified in the so-called present
> subjunctive, although I would drop the "present" and refocus the
> term a
> bit. It's not an inflectionally distinct form, as you correctly note,
> but it is a syntactically distinct one.
>
> Clauses like
>
> (I demand) that the prisoner be released.
>
> or
>
> God bless the Queen.
>
> have a different syntactic pattern from those of other clauses that
> use
> the base form of the verb (imperatives or infinitives), that clause
> form
>
> deserves a distinct label, and "subjunctive" is as good a term for
> it as
>
> any.
>
> So for me, the term "subjunctive" is useful for English as long as we
> keep in mind that it does not mean exactly the same thing for
> English as
>
> it does for Latin.
>
> Karl
>
> STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
>> "Subjunctive" is one of those terms that causes endless confusion
> among
>> students of grammar and pointless dispute among grammarians. In most
>> languages the term is used to identify an inflectional category of
>> the
>> verb, as in the Latin "porto" (I carry)
>>
>> Indicative Subjunctive
>> 1s porto portem
>> 2s portas portes
>> 3s portat portet
>> 1p portamus portemus
>> 2p portatis portetis
>> 3p portant portent
>>
>> a category of forms used in unfulfilled conditions, counterfactuals,
> and
>> other irrealis constructions.
>>
>> The forms sometimes called "subjunctive" in English, namely, bare
> forms
>> and "were," are indistinguishable morphologically from infinitives,
>> imperatives, and non-third-person present forms in the former case
>> and
>> the past plural of "be" in the latter. So we don't have a form of
>> the
>> verb that can be identified as subjunctive. We have constructions
> that
>> are used where Old English other languages use subjunctive
>> inflection,
>> but these are syntactic structures, not morphological contrasts.
>>
>> "If it were raining" is counterfactual, as is "Were it raining."
>>
>> "I demand that the prisoners be released" has a tenseless, irrealis
>> clause, a clause describing something that has not happened.
>>
>> Constructions like these have a modal quality of unreality, or
> irrealis,
>> in grammatical terms, but to call them subjunctive is to preserve a
>> label for a form the language has long since lost.
>>
>> Old English didn't even have much of a subjunctive. Unlike the
> present
>> indicative paradigm, which has separate forms for 1/2/3 sg., the
>> subjunctive paradigm uses the 1s indicative form for all persons in
> the
>> singular and adds the preterite plural suffix -n for all persons in
> the
>> plural. See the paradigms for "ridan" (to ride). I've left out
>> vowel
>> length marking for both Latin and Old English.
>>
>> Indicative Subjunctive
>> 1s ride ride
>> 2s ridest ride
>> 3s rideth ride
>> 1p ridath riden
>> 2p ridath riden
>> 3p ridath riden
>>
>> Modern English has no subjunctive and didn't have much subjunctive to
>> lose in the first place. It can, however, use syntactic
>> constructions
>> to say anything that languages that have a subjunctive can say.
>>
>> Herb
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Karl Hagen
>> Sent: 2008-03-13 18:23
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Subjunctive
>>
>> The subjunctive has been disappearing from our language for a very
> long
>> time. Grammarians have complained that its use has been declining at
>> least as far back as Priestly in the 18th century.
>>
>> I doubt there's really been much of a change in at least the last 100
>> years. It's rare in speech, but still maintained in more formal
> writing.
>>
>> This really isn't an issue of active language change as much as it is
> of
>>
>> different registers, each of which has remained fairly stable for a
> long
>>
>> time.
>>
>> It's also worth noting that the so-called present subjunctive is
>> alive
>
>> and well in mandative contexts (e.g., "The teacher required that her
>> students be polite").
>>
>> Karl
>>
>> Veit, Richard wrote:
>>> That fact that half of a group of educated speakers did not use the
>>> subjunctive to describe a hypothetical situation is more evidence
>>> suggesting that the subjunctive is disappearing from our language.
>>>
>>> Dick Veit
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>>
>>> Richard Veit
>>> Department of English
>>> University of North Carolina Wilmington
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Linda Di Desidero
>>> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 9:36 AM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: Subjunctive
>>>
>>> At a recent (large) faculty meeting, one of the administrators ran a
>>> 'warm-up' activity. The idea was for faculty members to stand up,
>>> introduce themselves, and talk about what they would be doing on a
>>> Saturday morning if they were not attending this meeting.
>>>
>>> I kept track: At least half of the speakers said "If I was not here"
>>> while almost half said "If I were not here." I was surprised, given
>>> that this was an educated group of people and the speaking occasion
>> was
>>> not all that informal.
>>>
>>> Oh, the things we find to interest ourselves!
>>>
>>> Linda
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Linda Di Desidero, Ph.D.
>>>
>>> Associate Professor
>>>
>>> Assistant Academic Director of Writing
>>>
>>> Communication, Arts, and Humanities
>>>
>>> University of Maryland University College
>>>
>>> 3501 University Boulevard East
>>>
>>> Adelphi, MD 20783-8083
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> (240) 582-2830
>>>
>>> (240) 582-2993 (fax)
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kathleen M. Ward
>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 1:47 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: Subjunctive
>>>
>>> Well, it does, of course (she should have said "If Obama were a
>>> white
>>> man") but the subjunctive has been disappearing from English for
>>> centuries now. I think it has become pretty rare in speech. (I
>>> take it that this was an interview quotation?)
>>>
>>> Kathleen Ward
>>> UC Davis
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mar 12, 2008, at 9:30 AM, DD Farms wrote:
>>>
>>>> DD: Am I a bit confused? Consider the quote from Geraldine Ferraro,
>>>> [NYT 12 Mar 08, Maureen Dowd.] "If Obama was a white man, he would
>> not
>>>> be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color), he would
>>>> not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he
> is.
>>
>>>> And the country is caught up in the concept." I thought High
>> Standard
>>>> English required the use of the subjunctive in stating a condition
>>>> contrary to fact.
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>>
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