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Re: Grammatical Summary of Kemata

From:Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Date:Thursday, December 13, 2001, 8:46
Quoting Anton Sherwood <bronto@...>:

> "Thomas R. Wier" wrote: > > (a) The judge suggested that he be put in confinement. > > (b) The judge suggested that he is put in confinement. > > > > The subjunctive in (a) implies that the judge wants some particular > > action to occur; the indicative in (b) implies that the judge thinks > > that a particular set of cirumstances is the case, but does not > > comment on whether that is a good or a bad thing. > > > > (Not all English speakers distinguish between these two; the > > lack of such a distinction seems to be especially common in > > Britain as opposed to any of her former colonies.) > > I think most Americans would use an auxiliary > rather than a bare subjunctive: "...that he should be..." > (or in this case, undoing the passive, a gerund: > "...suggested putting him...")
While those are certainly options for achieving the same result, I don't think "most Americans" [educated ones, anyways] would find the bare subjunctive odd. I, certainly, use it all the time because that's what comes naturally, and I never get the impression from people around me that I'm speaking in a funny way. ===================================================================== Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier> "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n / Dept. of Linguistics mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..." University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought / 1010 E. 59th Street and not complete one road that has no turn" Chicago, IL 60637 Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers