subjunctive

[JuanTwoThree]

I'm not sure I understand why "If I was the boss" is not subjunctive.

It's like saying "He go" is not in the third person.

When an amnesiac says "If I was the boss I can't remember it" it is not subjunctive; when I say "If I was the boss, I'd fire him" it is. Wrongly or informally constructed perhaps, but the subjunctive nevertheless.

[Stephen Jones]

when I say "If I was the boss, I'd fire him" it is.

No! The subjunctive is 'if I were'. In practice it doesn't matter whether the mood in the apodosis is indicative or subjunctive if it is describing an unlikely or hypothetical situation.

[JuanTwoThree]

Bear with me on this because I may be being stupid.

To judge by Wikipedia, with all the concomitant perils which that entails, at the very least it can be said that I don't seem to be the only person who thinks that there is a past subjunctive which is indistinguishable from the past simple (indicative) until it comes to "were". See the chart for "owned"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood

and the references to "had".

And with more authority than Wiki:

http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/061.html

So "If I were made king tomorrow" is indubitably subjunctive, but so is "If I became king tomorrow". And "If I was made king tomorrow" isn't? It's rather odd to say that that "was" there is indicative, it's more like an non-standard/informal subjunctive. After all "indicative" means "statement of pure fact" which is a bit rich in combination with "made king tomorrow". The indicative is "If I was made king yesterday, I was so drunk that I've forgotten about it".

If the "were-were-were-were-were-were" subjunctive disappeared and became "was-were-was-were-were-were" wouldn't it just mean that "be" had joined all the other verbs whose past indicative could only be distinguished from their past subjunctive by context. It wouldn't be the death of the past subjunctive in English.

[MrPedantic]

So go on then, is there a difference between subjunctive and conditionals?

I would agree that a conditional clause can take several forms, only some of which involve a verb in the subjunctive.

For instance, here, the protasis accepts a condition for the rhetorical purpose of bringing evidence against it:

1. If he was a rich man, why did he live in a run-down old house?

The verb "was" is not subjunctive; it relates to a real past. The present tense equivalent would be:

2. If he is a rich man, why does he live in a run-down old house?

On the question of "was" vs "were", my impression is that at least some (BrE) speakers make a distinction on grounds other than register.

Thus for such a speaker, #3 might seem "speculative" (the condition is open), and #4 "dismissive" (the condition has been rejected):

3. If he were a rich man, he would live in a bigger house.
4. If he was a rich man, he would live in a bigger house.

MrP

[JuanTwoThree]

That last point #4 is an interesting one but I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with word stress. /wos/ when emphasised may suggest the disbelief of the speaker you mention. But when it's /wers/ then I can't see it being different in meaning from "were".