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Re: English Subjunctive

From:Stone Gordonssen <stonegordonssen@...>
Date:Tuesday, October 28, 2003, 14:13
>The present subjunctive still survives in American (but not British) >usage in certain kinds of complement clauses. "Harriet suggests that >Joan plays Ophelia" is opposed to "Harriet suggests that Joan play >Ophelia". The former means that Harriet does not know the fact of the >matter and is conjecturing; the latter, that there is no fact of the >matter yet and Harriet is proposing.
While I tend to use these forms myself...
>In British usage, "should play", with unstressed "should", is used in >place of subjunctive "play". This is one of the few genuinely grammatical >differences between the dialects.
I know many Americans who use this instead. _________________________________________________________________ Never get a busy signal because you are always connected with high-speed Internet access. Click here to comparison-shop providers. https://broadband.msn.com