Evidence for the existence of a subjunctive mood in English

The author discusses several types of constructions in English which, it has been argued, require the use of a subjunctive form of the verb. Examples include constructions which suggest desire, uncertainty and necessity, such as in the sentence ‘We suggested he walk to the park’. The verb ‘walk’, which would normally add the suffix ‘-s’ as it must agree with a third person subject, does not add this suffix in this case. The author examines whether the verb forms used in such constructions should be analysed as a subjunctive form of the verb or as a construction involving a deleted modal. In this case, the underlying form of the sentence is ‘We suggested he should walk to the park’ but the modal auxiliary ‘should’ has been deleted. The author explores this idea by looking at the use of the subjunctive mood in another construction in English: if-clauses. It appears that a past tense form of the subjunctive is present here e.g. ‘If I were to work tonight, I wouldn’t be able to see my family’. The verb form ‘was’ would normally be used in the past tense for a first person singular subject, but here the form ‘were’ is found instead, which can be seen as the underlying form of the verb in the past tense without inflection. The author examines whether both of these constructions are indeed part of the grammar of most speakers of British English, as many would class such constructions as overly formal, if not oblique or even ungrammatical. This is done through the use of a survey on grammaticality judgements, which involves both types of constructions discussed here and their variants, involving the use of other verb forms. For example, subjects are asked to judge the sentence ‘He suggested she take a walk to cool off’, as well as ‘He suggested she took a walk to cool off’, ‘He suggested she takes a walk to cool off’, and ‘He suggested she should take a walk to cool off’. Each sentence is given a rating on a discrete scale from 0 to 5, with 0 being classed as ‘unacceptable’ and 5 being classed as ‘acceptable’. The results of the survey have not been fully collected yet, but they will be discussed in depth in the paper. The author will come to a conclusion about whether the evidence analysed indicates the existence of a subjunctive mood in English.