English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
A5.4 Other verb forms
A5 Verbs and their forms
Section A. Introduction
There are two other (finite) verb forms that you need to be familiar with: the imperative and the subjunctive. The imperative (e.g. Sit down!) is identical in form with the infinitive; it is explained in B9.
The subjunctive is the name given to certain ’unexpected’ finite verb forms which are the remnants of a once extensive system in English. It is found nowadays only in a few situations:
□ after conjunctions such as if if only and as though, and the verb wish, to express a hypothetical idea:
If I were rich . . .
It’s as though he were looking for trouble.
This is a formal use. The expected form, was, is also possible.
□ after certain verbs, such as recommend, suggest, advise, and after adjectives such as important, to suggest a future ’desired’ state or action (the ’mandative’ subjunctive):
I suggest he leave immediately. (instead of the expected leaves, which is also possible)
It is important that you be there on time. (instead of are, which is also possible)
This is also formal.
□ in certain fixed phrases expressing wishes: God save the Queen. Long live the King.
Except for the verb be, the subjunctive is only noticeable in the third person singular, where the -s ending is not used. With be, the present subjunctive is the same for all persons (’be’), as is the past subjunctive (’were’).
Comments
Activity A5.1: The forms are: are*, said, denote, are, denote, imply, are, (to) do, can*, be, (to) do. Those marked with an asterisk are auxiliaries.
Activity A5.2: The verb is be. The eight forms are:
be infinitive
am, are, is present tense forms
was, were past tense forms
being -ing participle
been -ed participle
As can be seen, be makes several distinctions in present and past tense forms that other verbs do not make.
Activity A5.3:
The answer is ’none’. You may have come to a total of eight, twelve, or even sixteen forms (if the ’conditional’ is known to you), but English basically has only two tenses: present and past. You may have suggested ’perfect’ and ’continuous’ forms, and in pedagogic terms it is acceptable to talk about the ’present perfect’ or ’past continuous’ tenses. But in scientific grammar the ideas of perfect and continuous are covered by another concept, ’aspect’, which is dealt with formally in A6 and semantically in B5.
What may surprise you most is to be told that there is no future tense in English. The claim that there is a future tense in English is based on a ’fallacy’ (a fundamentally incorrect belief), that time and tense are equivalent, that because there are past, present and future ’times’, there should be past, present and future ’tenses’. Time is a notional category; tense is a grammatical, linguistic category. There is no one-to-one relationship between the two. For one thing, the future is very different from the past and present, in that it is not certain, which means that when we refer to the future we are involving other ideas, such as predictions, promises or plans, rather than facts.
Activity A5.4: All of the underlined verb forms refer to the future apart from -ll in 5, which indicates a current deduction, based on the evidence of the knock on the door (and perhaps Yoyo’s known propensity for lateness). In 1 will has the idea of an order; in 2 the present tense refers to a future event in a fixed schedule; in 3 the present continuous suggests a current plan or arrangement for the future, while -ll has the idea of a promise. In 4 the selling of the house is made to seem a matter of course.