The Subjunctive Mood from the point of view of the representatives of the Russian linguistic school

The category of mood in the present English verb has given rise to so many discussions, and has been treated in so many different ways, that it seems hardly possible to arrive at any more or less convincing and universally acceptable conclusion concerning it. Indeed, the only points in the sphere of mood which have not so far been disputed seem to be these: there is a category of mood in Modern English; there are at least two moods in the modern English verb, one of which is the Subjunctive. These points were discussed not only by English grammarians, but Russian grammarians too.

Academician V. Vinogradov in his work «Russian Language» gave the definition of the category of mood: «Mood expresses the relation of the action to reality, as stated by the speaker.»

The relations between meaning and form will be expressed by two different series of external signs.

The first of these two points may be illustrated by sequence we should come, which means one thing in the sentence I think we should come here again tomorrow; it means another thing in the sentence if we knew that he wants us we should come to see him, and it means another thing again in the sentence How queer that we should come at the very moment when you were talking about us! In a similar way, several meanings may be found in the sequence he would come in different contexts.

The second of the two points may be illustrated by comparing the two sentences, I suggest that he go and I suggest that he should go, and we will for the present neglect the fact that the first of the two variants is more typical of American, and the second of British English.

Matters are still further complicated by two phenomena where we are faced with a choice between polysemy and homonymy. One of these concerns forms like lived, knew, etc. Such forms appear in two types of contexts, of which one may be exemplified by the sentences, He lived here five years ago, or I knew it all along, and the other by the sentences If he lived here he would come at once, or, If I knew his address I should write to him.

In sentences of the first type the form obviously is the past tense of the indicative mood. The second type admits of two interpretations: either the form lived, knew, etc. are the same forms of the past indicative that were used in the first type, but they have acquired another meaning in this particular context, or else the forms lived, knew, etc. are forms of the past indicative but are basically different.

There is another peculiar complication in the analysis of mood. The question is, what verbs are auxiliaries of Mood in Modern English? The verbs should and would are auxiliaries expressing unreality. But the question is less clear with the verb may when used in such sentences as Come closer that I may hear what you say. Is the group may hear some mood form of the verb hear, or is it a free combination of two verbs, thus belonging entirely to the field of syntax, not morphology? The same question may be asked about the verb may in such sentences as May you be happy! Where it is part of a group used to express a wish, and is perhaps a mood auxiliary. We ought to seek an objective criterion which would enable us to arrive at a convincing conclusion.

All these considerations, varied as they are, make the problem of mood in Modern English extremely difficult to solve and they seem to show in advance that no universally acceptable solution can be hoped for in a near future. Those proposed so far have been extremely unlike each other. Owning to the difference of approach to moods, grammarians have been vacillating between two extremes – 3 moods (indicative, subjunctive and imperative), put forward by many grammarians, and 16 moods, as proposed by M. Deutschbein. Between these extremes there are intermediate views, such as that of Prof. A. Smirnitsky, who proposed a system of 6 moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive I, subjunctive II, suppositional, and conditional), and who was followed in this respect by M. Ganshina and N. Vasilevskaya.

If we look through the meaning of the mood forms, we obtain the following headings:

We would thus get either four moods, or three moods, or two moods. The choice between these variants will remain arbitrary and is unlikely ever to be determined by means of any objective data.

If, on the other hand, we start from the means of expressing moods we are likely to get something like this system:

In this way we should obtain different system, comprising six moods, with the following meanings:

1. Inducement

2. Possibility

3. Unreal condition

4. Unlikely condition

5. Consequence of unreal condition

6. Wish or purpose

A similar problem concerns the groups «should + infinitive» and «would + infinitive». Two views are possible here. If we have decided to avoid homonymy as far as possible, we will say that a group of this type is basically a tense (the future-in-the-past), which under certain specified conditions may express an unreal action – the consequence of an unfulfilled condition.

If we endorse one of the views, that is, if we take the temporal and the modal groups «should (would) + infinitive» to be homonyms, the patterns themselves will not change. The change will affect the headings. We shall have to say, in that case, that the patterns serve to distinguish between two basically different forms sounding alike. Again, just as in the case of lived and knew, this will be a matter of interpreting facts, rather than of the facts as such.

To sum up the whole discussion about categories of the verb found in conditional sentences, the simplest view, and the one to be preferred is that we have here forms of the indicative mood in a special use. Another view is that we have here forms of special moods, and that they are distinguished from each other according to the category of correlation.