Teacher Discussion Forums

Some evidence that the subjunctive is less moribund than you might think, though perhaps only in the US:

http://www.ceafinney.com/subjunctive/examples.html

which got me thinking. If we accept that "I suggest that he bring it up at the next meeting" is current English, albeit of a remarkable exquisiteness, then is its negative:
"I suggest that he do not bring it up at the next meeting" or
"I suggest that he not bring it up at the next meeting"? Or either?
This next link suggests that the negative is formed without "do"

http://www.englishpage.com/minitutorial ... ctive.html

and there's an example of such a form in the link at the beginning:
"We are adamant that that not happen"
though there are very few negatives at all amongst those given.

Exact phrase match "I suggest that he not" googles us with some 250 convincing examples.

So is there no "do" in the formation of the present subjunctive negative and how long will it be before somebody uses the word "deontic"?

Juan, I have said a number of times that the subjunctive is no disappearing except for the free use of forms that are now fossilised.

Apart from the fossilised forms, there are of course two basic forms of the subjunctive. The present and past. These are formed in two different ways:

The present subjunctive is formed by modal deletion:
I advise that you [should][not] bring it up at the meeting.
Since not follows the deleted modal, it should not be surprising that that is how the present subjunctive is made negative. However, since the present subjunctive is used to emphasise urgency of action, it is usually in positive form.

The past subjunctive requires do support except where the verb in the subjunctive mood is a word that doesn't normally require do support:

If I were to go.
If I weren't to go.
If I went.
If I didn't go (not subjunctive.)

It is possible to use be-support instead, however:
If I were to go.
If I were not to go.

Are you saying that the present subjunctive only came about because of modal deletion? What you describe is an observation but it's not the mechanism. It only happens to be true that the present subjunctive does get formed by the elimination of should.

I would have thought that the subjunctive was far older than the grammatisation of the modals and that a modal (probably should) began to be slipped in when there was increasing use of modals in general.

In other words it's not that when you delete "should" you have the subjunctive but that when you slide the modal in you no longer have the subjunctive.

I'm willing to bet that there was a fully fledged present subjunctive in Old and Middle English long before modals and the regularisation of do-support.

It's pretty much how I vaguely remember:

http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl381/MEwkvb.htm

While the ME present indicative had four or five endings the subjunctive only had one, or two.

Even in Early Modern it went:

I love, thou lovest, he loveth Indicative

that I love, that you love, that he love Subjunctive


So what happened is that do-support, non-existent in 1400, once again did not reach one of a number of remarkably similar structures. Every time I come across another instance of lack of do-support in English (see previous posts) I am struck but no longer surprised by its similarity to the other instances.