First Level of Thinking |
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Indicative
Mood - Real |
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Subjunctive
Mood - Not Real |
Language
related with verbs conjugated in the indicative
mood reflect what is really transpiring. Most of
what we do, act upon, experience - is related using
verb forms in the indicative mood. In other words:
use indicative mood to tell what is real. |
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Language
related with verbs conjugated in the subjunctive
mood include any ideas or events as they transpire
in someone's mind, whether a command form (most
of them), or an idea, or conjectural speculation.
Use subjunctive for imagined. |
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Second Level of Thinking |
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Indicative:
This is really going on! |
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Subjunctive:
... in somebody's head! |
PRESENT
TENSE
covers the territory of what's going on now!
I work at Joe's. I'm eating in a restaurant. We're
going to Spain next summer. He works hard. Those
are all examples of sentences in the present tense.
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Present
subjunctive provides possibilities of what we see
others doing. It has nothing to do with the reality
of what IS, but merely conveys those possibilities:
I want you to study. (I want something. What is
it? ... that you study.)
Are you studying? |
IMPERFECT
TENSE is
a past tense. It tells what was happening, what
would regularly occur, what used to go on. It provides
information that is usually background for events.
It was raining when the tree fell on the house.
There's an event and a background in that statement.
Which is which? |
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Past
subjunctive works the same as the present, only
within a past timeframe. Only one past form is used
(the imperfect), which covers all events that (someone
thinks) occurred in the past. |
PRETERITE
TENSE is
a past tense. It provides verbs in the form of stating
a past event, an occurrence, ... it happened! It
is the event of the tree falling onto the house.
An accident that occurred. A deed someone did. This
is what News Reporters are out to tell you, as they
sensationalize some small doing in Podunk, USA.
Mrs. Smith broke her leg today. |
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FUTURE
TENSE is
a glimpse into the unknown, looking "ahead."
It gives information in a conjectural form, more
than stating what is going to happen. It may be
used for "future actions" - but generally is not.
If you want to state or ask what somebody might
be thinking of doing, use a verb in the future tense!
Where do you think they're going?
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There
is no future subjunctive. Since the future tense
already relates to events "unknown" -
there is already a sense of conjecture built into
the tense itself. By its very use, one knows that
something "might" or "might not"
be. Since the future IS unknown,
there's no need to convey that the information is
transpiring only in the speaker's head. |
CONDITIONAL
TENSE is
also a glimpse into the unknown, looking at possibilities.
It is always "would"
do something, if
something else were to be the circumstances or something
else were to occur. Nothing about the conditional
tense is real, in the sense that the action is never
really going on. It's based on some condition that's
not known to exist yet. I would buy a new car
if I had the money. |
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There
is no conditional subjunctive. An "if-clause"
already precludes the conditional tense, which means
the action relies on the presence or absence of
certain conditions, be they real or imaginary. At
any rate, the "sense" of the conditional
carries its own weight for conveying basically unfounded
information. |
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