Курсовая работа: The problems of the Subjunctive Mood in English

G.O. Curme in the work «A Grammar of the English Language» considers moods as the changes in the form of the verb to show the various ways in which the action or state is thought of by the speaker.

There are two moods:

1. Indicative Mood. This form represents something as a fact, or as in close relation with reality, or in interrogative form inquires after a fact.

2. Subjunctive Mood. The function of the subjunctive mood is to represent something, not as an actual reality, but as formed in the mind of the speaker as a desire, wish, volition, plan, conception, thought; something with more or less hope of realization, or, in the case of a statement, with more or less belief, sometimes with little or no hope or faith.

The various meanings may be classified under two general heads – the optative subjunctive and the potential subjunctive. The optative subjunctive represents something as desired, demanded, required. The potential subjunctive marks something as a mere conception of the mind, but at the same time represents it as something that may probably be or become a reality or on the other hand as something that is contrary to fact.

H. Whitehall in the work «Structural Essentials of English» says that Mood (or mode) establishes the speaker’s or writer’s mood about the actuality of a happening. The indicative mood indicates that what he says must be regarded as a fact, i.e., as having occurred or as occurring; the so-called subjunctive mood implies that he is doubtful or uncertain about its occurrence.

Although the subjunctive is gradually dying out of the language, English is rich in devices for expressing one’s psychological moods toward happenings that are imaginary.

Our apparatus for expressing mood suggests that in the use of verb word-groups, the speaker’s or writer’s mental attitudes are of great importance.

Many grammarians enumerate the following moods in English, etc.: indicative, subjunctive, imperative, infinitive, and participle. O. Jespersen as it can be seen from «The Philosophy of Grammar» considers that infinitives and participles cannot be coordinated with the others, and we shall therefore in this chapter deal with the first three moods only. These are sometimes called fact-mood, thought-mood, and will-mood respectively. But they do not express different relations between subject and predicate. It is much more correct to say that they express certain attitudes of the mind of the speaker towards the contents of the sentence.

O. Jespersen in his work «A modern English Grammar» presents forms of the Subjunctive Mood in the table: