Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T17:31:37.370Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The English present subjunctive

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

W. H. Hirtle
W. H. Hirtle*
Affiliation:
Laval University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

An examination of the comments by linguists on the present subjunctive in current English reveals a surprising degree of unanimity of opinion concerning it. Most grammarians consider its extinction either imminent or accomplished. Thus, for example, Whitehall states that “the subjunctive is gradually dying out of the language.” Close considers that “apart from a few archaic remains it has disappeared from English altogether.” And Kruisinga says flatly: “living English has no subjunctive at all.” Other writers say that it “has very little vital power left”; that it “has disappeared”; that it is “moribund”; that it is “extinct”; that it is “fossilized”; and so on. Several authors suggest that its death throes can be observed in “literary English.” It is the purpose of the first part of this article to examine the arguments supporting these conclusions and to comment on their validity. Two types of argument can be discerned: the historical and the morphological.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , Spring 1964 , pp. 75 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1964

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Whitehall, H., Structural Essentials of English (New York, 1956), p. 81 Google Scholar.

2 Close, R. A., English as a Foreign Language (London, 1962), p. 15 Google Scholar.

3 Kruisinga, E., A Handbook of Present-Day English, vol. 1, part 2 (Groningen, 1931), p. 147 Google Scholar.

4 Jespersen, O., Growth and Structure of the English Language (Oxford, 1958), p. 194 Google Scholar.

5 Baugh, A. C., A History of the English Language (New York, 1957), p. 400 Google Scholar.

6 Vallins, G. H., The Pattern of English (London, 1957), p. 26 Google Scholar; Fowler, H. W., A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford, 1960), p. 574 Google Scholar.

7 Poutsma, H., A Grammar of Late Modern English, part 2, section 2 (Groningen, 1926), p. 165 Google Scholar; Sweet, H., A New English Grammar, part 2 (Oxford, 1958), p. 108 Google Scholar.

8 Poutsma, Ioc. cit.

9 Zandvoort, R. W., A Handbook of English Grammar (London, 1957), p. 88 Google Scholar; cf. also Kruisinga, op. cit., part 2, vol. 2, p. 451. In a recent article “On the So-called Subjunctive” (ELT 17 (1963), pp. 73-77), Zandvoort maintains that in at least one use the “s-less form” is “really alive” (p. 74).

10 Fries, C. C., American English Grammar (New York, 1940), p. 103 Google Scholar.

11 Kruisinga, E. and Erades, P. A., An English Grammar, vol. 1, part 2 (Groningen, 1960), p. 643 Google Scholar.

12 Visser, F. Th., “The Terms ‘Subjunctive and Indicative,’” English Studies 36 (1954), p. 206 Google Scholar.

13 Mackey, W. F., “The Description of Bilingualism,” CJL 7, 2 (1962), p. 61 Google Scholar.

14 Lado, R. and Fries, C. C., English Pattern Practices (Ann Arbor, 1958), p. 119n Google Scholar.

15 Conversation.

16 Conversation.

17 Astronaut John Glenn in a television interview.

18 CBC National News Bulletin.

19 Conversation.

20 Saturday Night (Aug. 8, 1961), p. 17.

21 Conversation.

22 Heard at the Canadian Linguistic Association business meeting, 1960.

23 American presidential candidate Richard Nixon during a television debate, October 21, 1960.

24 Carey, G. V., American into English (London, 1953), p. 17 Google Scholar.

25 Jespersen, O., A Modern English Grammar, part 4 (London, 1954), p. 162 Google Scholar.

26 Personal letter.

27 From an advertisement.

28 Carey, op. cit., p. 18.

29 Heard at the business meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association, 1961.

30 Close, op. cit., p. 19.

31 Curme, G. O., Syntax (Boston, 1931), p. 403 Google Scholar.

32 See the discussion in ES 35 (1953), pp. 123f.

33 Grammar, part 4, p. 162.

34 Charleston, B. M., Studies on the Emotional and Affective Means of Expression in Modern English (Swiss Studies in English, 46; Bern, 1960), p. 289 Google Scholar.

35 Bradley, H., The Making of English (London, 1931; first printed, 1904), p. 53 Google Scholar.

36 See, for example, Zandvoort, Handbook, pp. 86f.; Curme, Syntax, pp. 400ff.; Jespersen, Grammar, part 4, pp. 161ff.; Kruisinga, Handbook, vol. 2, part 2, p. 449.

37 Beveridge, W. J. B., The Art of Scientific Investigation (London, 1961), p. 102 Google Scholar.

38 Ibid., p. 105.

39 Ibid., p. 102; our emphasis.

40 Guillaume, G., Temps et Verbe, Théorie des aspects, des modes et des temps (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar.