You are most likely to recognize subjunctive verb forms in your reading when you come upon a verb that you think could not possibly be correct, as in the old subjunctive clause “If it be true ...

Some grammar purists seem to think the English subjunctive is a fragile creature in danger of extinction. As usual they can’t tell their adjective from their elbow, says Geoff Pullum.

After a full-dress review of the subjunctive in the preceding chapters, this form of the English language should no longer hold any terrors for us. With a clearer understanding of its uses and ...

Both forms of “ate” look like the plain past tense, though. It’s an odd theory of grammar to say that English has a full, robust and mandatory subjunctive, and yet that in almost every ...

By the end of the 20th century it was firmly associated with Americans who, wrote Kingsley Amis, a novelist, “often indulge in subjunctive forms”. What a strange fate.

Subjunctive mood The subjunctive mood, although it only has present-tense and past-tense forms, actually has a more varied and complex grammatical repertoire than the indicative and imperative.