tense and time (part2)

[JuanTwoThree]

Iconoclast, can you reconcile:

"Subjunctive is - was - form and not meaning, as would be obvious did it still truly exist"

with:

"Ironically, "subjunctive" is no longer an identifiable form - as Stephen Jones points out, it's all but disappeared - but has been turned into a meaning."

My point is that it is helpful to students to highlight and to almost drill that "I wish you didn't live here" means "You do live here" but "I wish you hadn't lived here" means "You did/have" . "I 'd rather you didn't pick your nose" means "You do" and so on, including the fact that "If I were you" means "But I'm not" and that " If I came
tomorrow" means "I won't, probably".

It's really not that important if these uses continue to be called past simple ( though I don't think it exactly helps) as long as the distinction can be drawn between the past simple as past and whatever we want to call the other thing: subjunctive, past simple for unreal situations, remote for hypothesis or the irrealis tense.

The fact that the difference cannot be seen when the verbs are " sung out independently of meaning and use" could equally be said of most forms of "cut, shut, let, put, hurt"; "started" and "(have) started"; imperatives and bare infinitives; "go" and "to go".

It could even be said of the "can" of "could" and the "can" of "canned".