Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 October 28

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October 28

Subjunctive overkill in the USA?

Our late colleague Medeis often talked about how the subjunctive is alive and well in America, but has more or less fallen into disuse elsewhere in the anglosphere. Americans require "If I were a rich man", while others settle for "If I was a rich man" (except when singing the song '"If I Were a Rich Man", of course).

But one American use of the conditional subjunctive has never sat well with me, as it sounds like overkill:

• "If you would have been here, you would have seen it".

The rest of the world says:

• "If you had been here, you would have seen it" (or "if you'd been here …")

So, is the former construction considered generally acceptable (prescriptively) in the USA, or acceptable within certain argots or idiolects, or are such instances considered (by people other than those who speak this way, of course) examples of grammatical ignorance? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:25, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

"Usually, would have suggests a bad feeling about the past. ... 'If she would have been faithful'" [1] Rmhermen (talk) 23:58, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

For me (American), the issue here is whether avoiding the subjunctive ("were", "had") is grammatically acceptable. I say no, but it is certainly common. Many people do not understand the subjunctive and cannot use it properly. Jmar67 (talk) 02:18, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

"If I were a rich man" is an example of what Huddleston and Pullum ("H&P") call "irrealis were" (and not the subjunctive). Their simplified treatment of irrealis were in A Student's Introduction to English Grammar says nothing about it being an Americanism, or about being rare in British English, or indeed anything about any regional difference. The British National Corpus (try it!) shows that it is very common in British English. ¶ "If you had / you'd been here, you would have seen it" is an example of what H&P term a "remote conditional", using "backshift" (again, not the subjunctive). This too is standard in British English. By contrast, the construction exemplified by "If you would have been here, you would have seen it" is unusual in British English. I looked in BNC for if * would have _v?n* ("if [word] would have [past participle]") and the numbers are very low; what examples I noticed were of something more or less subtly different (for example, "Moreover, not only is the dormant company then entitled to the exemption from auditing but, if it would have been entitled to the exemptions of a small company under section 246 but for the fact that it is a member of an ineligible group, it will also be entitled to those exemptions [...]".) ¶ I suspect that there's a confusion above with what H&P do call the subjunctive, more specifically the subjunctive mandative. Compare the following:

• It is essential that he be told immediately.
• It is essential that he should be told immediately.
• It is essential that he is told immediately.

These examples, which I've filched from H&P, are in their terminology respectively the subjunctive mandative, the should mandative, and the covert mandative. Rather famously the first of these was until recently regarded in Britain as very stiff, rather archaic or an Americanism, but it has recently had a revival. Any book-length survey of grammatical change in 20th/21st-century English is likely to cover this. -- Hoary (talk) 05:34, 29 October 2018 (UTC) Reworded very slightly, for clarity -- Hoary (talk) 13:47, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The last one ("that he is told") is extremely jarring to my ear. --Trovatore (talk) 21:47, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I believe that it's jarring to many, perhaps most, L1 speakers of US English. And it may well be jarring to others, too. On the "book-length surveys": as an example, the "subjunctive" (the subjunctive mandative and irrealis were) occupies the whole of chapter 3 of Leech et al, Change in contemporary English: A grammatical study (2009). -- Hoary (talk) 09:08, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Some people (myself among them) take the position that there isn't really a meaningful subjunctive in modern English. There are two constructions which survive from the old historical morphological subjunctive ("If I/he/she/it were..." and "I insist he be quiet") and a few scattered quasi-archaic relics ("Howbeit" etc.) and very little to connect these together based on any evidence from the synchronic grammar of English. "Would" etc. are modal verbs -- English verbs preceded by modals can have meanings comparable to those that subjunctive-inflected verbs have in languages where subjunctive inflections are a meaningful part of the living language, but that doesn't mean that the English modal constructions should be called "subjunctive" (I would advise against that). AnonMoos (talk) 08:18, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Jack of Oz, who asked this question and suggested it was an American usage, might be interested to know I have heard it used pretty consistently by a Jewish friend here in Melbourne, Australia, and his Jewish friends. I'm guessing they got it from their schooldays at a Jewish school, either formally or informally. HiLo48 (talk) 08:28, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Interesting. Mind you, we're no angels either. The version I frequently encounter down here is: "If you had have (or had've, or hadda) been here, you would've (or woulda) seen it". Just as erroneous and cringeworthy as the other one. It has a surface euphonic attraction, which may well account for the other one too. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:11, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The example "If you would have been here, you would have seen it" sounds to my English ears like it could be preceded by a "gee shucks", and possibly accompanied by some banjo music. DuncanHill (talk) 16:43, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The "if you would [have]" construction which I agree with AnonMoos should not be called "subjunctive", though I disagree with avoiding the term for counterfactuals and mandatives strikes me as having an extra connotation on top of a mere conditional. The extra connotation depends on context: One typical one is a sort of mild reproach ("if you would just listen to me!" or "if you would have taken my advice..."). Another I associate with telephone help desks ("if you would click on the icon you see to your right..."). In the absence of such a connotation, yes, it sounds dialectal and low-prestige. --Trovatore (talk) 03:05, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

That confirms my suspicion. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:35, 3 November 2018 (UTC)