How to Form the Subjunctive of English Verbs: Using amp; Declining the Subjeunctive Mood of Verbs

Grammatical mood may be the expression of modality, which refers to possibility, necessity, and contingency. The subjunctive mood of verbs in English expresses commands, doubts, guesses, hypotheses, purposes, requests, suggestions, and wishes which might be contrary to fact during the time of the utterance.
All kinds of the subjunctive mood in English closely resemble the corresponding types of the indicative mood. In fact, the subjunctive is distinguishable in form from your indicative inside the third person singular present tense forms and in forms that require the verb be because initial verb from the verb phrase. The following verb chart outlines the verb phrase patterns for the subjunctive mood:

The following chart provides examples from the subjunctive mood for your verb be, regular verbs, and irregular verbs. Note that the verbs highlighted in yellow differ completely from your indicative forms, the verbs highlighted in green differ only from the indicative forms inside the third person singular, and the verbs not highlighted are identical to the indicative forms. The verb be and other intransitive verbs will not have subjunctive passive forms.





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For example:




Unlike the indicative mood, the subjunctive mood often appears in subordinate clauses. Also known as dependent clauses, subordinate clauses contain both an interest and a predicate but cannot serve as complete sentences. Many of the verb phrases within the subjunctive mood inside previous examples start out with the subordinating conjunction if. Noun clauses that start with if in many cases are referred to as if clauses. The subjunctive mood in English most frequently appears in if clauses because such clauses always express possibility, necessity, and contingency. For example, inside the sentence If the driveway were being resealed, then I would park on the highway, my parking on the road is contingent upon the driveway being resealed.
However, its not all dependent clauses that express possibility, necessity, and contingency begin with the subordinating conjunction if. For example, the boy not failing the test was contingent on his studying as expressed inside sentence Had the boy been studying as he said, he would not have failed the exam. The noun clause Had the boy been studying because he said can be a subordinate clause made up of the subjunctive mood. This noun clause could also be written as If the boy ended up studying because he said with an if introducing the clause. However, in English, the if of the if clause can be removed so long because the first auxiliary verb switches places using the subject. Therefore, the if clause If the driveway were being resealed is also written as Were the driveway being resealed without eliminating the subjunctive mood.
The subjunctive mood also appears in a verb phrase following a modal verb.

In addition to appearing in if clauses, the subjunctive mood also follows certain verbs and phrases that express possibility, necessity, and contingency. For example, some with the most common English verbs that consider the subjunctive mood inside the following noun clause include:


Some of the most common English phrases that also go ahead and take subjunctive mood inside the following noun clause include:

The conjugated verb phrase following a modal verb can also be always in a present subjunctive form.

Unlike in other contemporary Indo-European languages like Spanish and German, modern English is quickly losing distinct verb forms inside subjunctive mood. Take for example these two English song lyrics:


In the initial example, Beyonc?? uses the subjunctive mood from the verb be in the if clause If I were a boy. The use in the subjunctive inside clause If I were a boy expresses contingency; if Beyonc?? were male as an alternative to female, she would perform the things she lists. However, she's not male, so she uses the subjunctive to state an idea that is unlike fact during the time of the statement. In the second example, however, Gwen Stefani uses the indicative form from the verb take place from the subjunctive form in 2 if clauses: If I would be a rich girl of course, if I was a wealthy girl. She is still expressing uncertain modality (she would only have all the money inside world inside the event that she were rich) but utilizes a form of the verb that's identical towards the indicative.

Many native English speakers similarly use indicative forms to express the subjunctive mood. For Whatsapp Friendship example, a speaker who says His parents insist which he eats every one of his vegetables before his dessert is expressing subjunctivity but is applying the indicative form of the verb (eats) as opposed to the subjunctive form (eat). The decline in the subjunctive in English is even more apparent and inevitable due to the fact about half with the subjunctive forms are actually identical to the indicative forms. The subjunctive ended up working is indistinguishable in form from your indicative ended up working. In fact, using subjunctive forms is required within the most formal registers of English usage. Language change is inevitable, and distinct subjunctive forms may soon disappear through the English language.
For info on other verb forms in English, please look at article The English Verb System for ESL Students.