The subjunctive (also known as the conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood—a feature of an utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude toward it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality, such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, obligation, or action that has not yet occurred. The precise situations in which they are used vary from language to language. The subjunctive is one of the irrealis moods, which refer to what is not necessarily real. It is often contrasted with the indicative, a realis mood which principally indicates that something is a statement of fact.
In Modern English, subjunctive forms usually employ the bare form of the verb in the present subjunctive (with the third person singular lacking the -s ending), or the use of were instead of was in past subjunctive constructions.
Subjunctives occur most often, although not exclusively, in subordinate clauses—particularly that-clauses. Examples of the subjunctive in English are found in the sentences "I suggest that you be careful" and "It is important that she stay by your side."
Indo-European languages
Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages) had two closely related moods: the subjunctive and the optative. Many of its daughter languages combined or merged these moods.
In Indo-European, the subjunctive was formed by using the full ablaut grade of the verb's root and appending the thematic vowel *-e- or *-o- to the root stem, with the full, primary set of personal inflections. The subjunctive was the Indo-European irrealis, used for hypothetical or counterfactual situations.
The optative mood was used to express wishes or hopes, and was formed with a suffix *-ieh1 or *-ih1 (with a laryngeal). The optative used the clitic set of secondary personal inflections.
Among the Indo-European languages, only Albanian, Avestan, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit kept the subjunctive and the optative fully separate and parallel. However, in Sanskrit, use of the subjunctive is found only in the Vedic language of the earliest times, and the optative and imperative were comparatively less common. In the later language (from c. 500 BC), the subjunctive fell out of use. The optative or imperative were used instead, or subjunctive was merged with optative as in Latin. However, the first-person forms of the subjunctive continue to be used as they are transferred to the imperative, which formerly, like Greek, had no first person forms.
Germanic languages In the Germanic languages, subjunctives are also usually formed from old optatives (a mood that indicates a wish or hope), with the present subjunctive marked with *-ai- and the past with *-ī-. In German, these forms have been reduced to a schwa, spelled -e. The past tense, however, often displays i-umlaut. In Old Norse, both suffixes evolved into -i-, but i-umlaut occurs only in the past subjunctive.An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Cleasby-Vigfússon, Outlines of Grammar; Gen. Remarks on the Strong & Irreg. Verbs ; Note γ
+ Old Norse active paradigm (set of rules) for the verb ("to dig")PresentPast PersonIndicative SubjunctiveIndicativeSubjunctive 1st singular 2nd singular 3rd singular 1st plural 2nd plural 3rd plural
English
In Modern English, the subjunctive is realised as a finite but tenseless clause where the main verb occurs in the bare form. Since the bare form is also used in a variety of other constructions, the English subjunctive is reflected by a clause type rather than a distinct inflection.
German
German has:
Konjunktiv Präsens, which is a Konjunktiv I, e.g. "er gehe" Konjunktiv Imperfekt (or Präteritum), which is a Konjunktiv II, e.g. "er ginge" Konjunktiv Perfekt, which is a Konjunktiv I too, e.g. "er sei gegangen" Konjunktiv Plusquamperfekt, which is a Konjunktiv II too, e.g. "er wäre gegangen"
If the Konjunktiv II of the Futur I (e.g. "ich würde gehen") and of the Futur II (e.g. "ich würde gegangen sein") are called "conditional", the numbers (I, II) can be dropped.
The present subjunctive occurs in certain expressions (e.g. 'Long live the king!') and in indirect (reported) speech. Its use can frequently be replaced by the indicative mood. For example, ('He said he was a physician') is a neutral representation of what was said and makes no claim as to whether the speaker thinks the reported statement is true or not.
The past subjunctive can often be used to express the same sentiments: Or, for example, instead of the formal, written 'He said he had no time' with present subjunctive , one can use past subjunctive :
However, in speech, the past subjunctive is common without any implication of doubt by the speaker. Use of the indicative and is also common. This is often changed in written reports to the forms using present subjunctive.
The present subjunctive is regular for all verbs except the verb ('to be'). It is formed by adding to the stem of the infinitive. The verb has the stem for the present subjunctive declension, but it has no ending for the first and third person singular. While the use of present subjunctive for reported speech is formal and common in newspaper articles, its use in colloquial speech is in decline.
It is possible to express the subjunctive in various tenses, including the perfect ( 'he has [apparently] been there') and the future ( 'he will be there'). For the preterite, which forms the Konjunktiv II with a somewhat different meaning, indirect speech must switch to the perfect tense, so that: becomes
The KII, or past subjunctive, is used to form the conditional. On occasion, it is also used as a replacement for the present subjunctive when the indicative and subjunctive moods of a verb are indistinguishable.
Every German verb has a past subjunctive conjugation, but in spoken German, the conditional is most commonly formed using with an infinitive. is the KII form of , which is related to the English or rather than the literal (dialect: , KII of 'to do'). For example: 'I would not help him if I were you'. In the example, the Konjunktiv II form of (hülfe) is very unusual. However, using instead of and can be perceived anywhere from awkward (in-the-present use of the past subjunctive) to incorrect (in the past subjunctive). There is a tendency to use the forms in rather in main clauses as in English; in subclauses, even regular forms (which sound like the obsolete indicative of the preterite) can still be heard.
Some verbs exist where either construction can be used, such as with () and (). Many dictionaries consider the past subjunctive declension of such verbs the only proper expression in formal written German.
The past subjunctive is declined from the stem of the preterite (imperfect) declension of the verb with the appropriate present subjunctive declension ending as appropriate. In most cases, an is appended to the stem vowel if possible (i.e. if it is , , or ), for example: .
Dutch
Dutch has the same subjunctive tenses as German (described above), though they are rare in contemporary speech. The same two tenses as in German are sometimes considered subjunctive mood () and sometimes conditional mood (). In practice, potentially subjunctive uses of verbs are difficult to differentiate from indicative uses. This is partly because the subjunctive mood has fallen together with the indicative mood:
The plural of the subjunctive (both present and past) is always identical to the plural of the indicative. There are a few exceptions where the usage is clearly subjunctive, such as (May they rest in peace) compared to the singular (May he/she rest in peace). In the present tense, the singular form of the subjunctive differs from the indicative by the addition of -e. For example, the subjunctive (May God bless you, my child) differs from the indicative (God blesses you, my child.) In the past tense, the singular subjunctive form of weak verbs (the vast majority of verbs) is identical to the indicative. Only for strong verbs, the preterite-present verbs, and some irregular weak verbs does the past subjunctive differ from the past indicative, and only in the singular form. For example, the subjunctive , and differ from the indicative "had", "was" and ("had", "was" and "could").
Archaic and traditional phrases still contain the subjunctive mood: ('Take ...' – literally 'one take ...' – as found in recipes) ('Thy name be hallowed' – from the Lord's Prayer) ('Hallowed be thy name' – from the Lord's Prayer, as used in Belgium until 2016) ('So truly help me God almighty' – when swearing an oath) (now a common Dutch curse; originally a request to God to curse something) ('Thanks be to God') ('Thanks to ...' – literally 'Thank be ...') ('Long live the king')
Luxembourgish Luxembourgish has the same subjunctive tenses as German (described above). For the periphrasis however, is used instead of or (dialectal) .
Swedish
Latin and the Romance languages
Latin
The Latin subjunctive has many uses, contingent upon the nature of a clause within a sentence:Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar, §438. Dover Publications, 2006. Print.
Within independent clauses: Exhortation or command Concession Wish Question of doubt Possibility or contingency
Within dependent clauses: Condition Purpose Characteristic Result Time Indirect questions
Historically, the Latin subjunctive originates from the ancestral optative inflections, while some of the original subjunctive forms went on to compose the Latin future tense, especially in the Latin third conjugation. The influence of *-i- from the old optative forms may be found in the typically high vowel of Latin subjunctives, even when the indicative mood has a lower vowel. For example, Latin 'we ask', in the indicative mood, corresponds to the subjunctive , 'let us ask', where e is a higher vowel than a.
+Latin present subjunctive formsConjugation1st2nd3rd"Languages: Latin: curro." Verbix. N.p., 2010. Web. 22 Mar. 2010. <>.3rdIO4th 1st singular 2nd singular 3rd singular 1st plural 2nd plural 3rd plural
The subjunctive mood retains a highly distinct form for nearly all verbs in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian (among other Romance languages), and for a number of verbs in French. All of these languages inherit their subjunctive from Latin, where the subjunctive mood combines both forms and usages from a number of original Indo-European inflection sets, including the original subjunctive and the optative mood.
In many cases, the Romance languages use the subjunctive in the same ways that English does, though there are exceptions. For example, English generally uses the auxiliary may or let to form desiderative expressions, such as "Let it snow". The Romance languages use the subjunctive for these; French, for example, says, and . However, in the case of the first-person plural, these languages have imperative forms: 'Let us go' in French is . In addition, the Romance languages tend to use the subjunctive in various kinds of subordinate clauses, such as those introduced by words meaning although, e.g. English: "Although I am old, I feel young"; French: