By Shneur Agronin, Arts & Culture Editor
For years, I struggled to wrap my head around a particularly nuanced but critical aspect of most major world languages. English speakers use it in every other sentence, yet if I were to tell you its name, you likely wouldn’t recognize it. However, you are intimately familiar with how this aspect of grammar works and intuitively understand it effortlessly. Indeed, were you not to use it, both yourself and anyone you spoke to would immediately take note of the horribly mangled sentences coming out of your mouth (well, as my friends know quite well, I certainly would!). I even used it three times in the previous two sentences, and I can guarantee that, while you didn’t notice it, your brain effortlessly understood why I did. Allow me to bridge the gap between your subconscious and conscious linguistic capabilities by introducing the latter to the magnificent beauty of the subjunctive mood.
Before I lavish praise upon my beloved native tongue, I owe much credit to the Romance languages for exemplifying the use of the subjunctive mood and giving me countless opportunities to study it. If you speak Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, or any other descendants of the lovely Latin language, you not only know how to use the subjunctive mood, but you are a bonafide expert! To provide a short explanation of how the subjunctive mood works in those languages is not easy, but here’s my best attempt: whenever you express opinions, desires, and some commands, you use the subjunctive mood. Enjoy the following demonstration in Spanish, following which I will elaborate on the English subjunctive mood and how, unfortunately, its days may be numbered.
¡Es importante que (él) llegue en tiempo! – “It’s important that he arrive on time!”
While most English speakers wouldn’t take issue if you replaced “arrive” with “arrives,” such is not the case in Spanish. For those who include el idioma español among their linguistic repertoires, prepare yourselves for a truly terrifying trainwreck of a sentence:
¡Es importante que (él) llega en tiempo!
How did I destroy the sentence just by swapping a few letters? For those who don’t speak Spanish, let’s examine an English example which illustrates how awful that sentence sounds to Spanish ears:
“May the Force is with you.”
Here, let me fix that:
“May the Force be with you.”
Aha! Now that makes sense!
But what exactly did I just do, beyond replacing one two-letter word with another? The answer lies in my beloved subjunctive mood. We English speakers still differentiate between concrete, observable, ongoing actions (known as “indicative” verbs, because they indicate clear and definable actions), and uncertain, opinion-based, and questionable actions. You might ask yourself the purpose of such a distinction if, after all, you’ve probably never even heard of the subjunctive mood in any English class you’ve taken. While I empathize with your question given the modern atrophying of the English subjunctive (which I mourn), these two sentences will answer your question:
“Tomorrow, I danced.” Doesn’t make much sense, right? “Tomorrow, I will dance.” Now, that’s better!
In other words, the differentiation between indicative and subjunctive verbs holds as much importance as do basic verb tenses, especially in the Romance languages. For those readers still awake, I thank you, first and foremost, and likely to your relief, I conclude the grammar lesson here. But, before you turn your attention to less linguistic matters, I ask for a chance to further explain just how incredible this particular facet of grammar truly is.
We, as human beings, possess the unique faculty of complex, verbal language. With this incredible capability, we can split hairs expressing ourselves to others through our words by conveying entirely different, nuanced ideas by minimally modifying those words themselves. Quite literally, by changing just two letters in a sentence (“May the Force is with you,” to “May the Force be with you,”), we turn a meaningless, awkward, dumpster fire of a phrase, into a pop culture icon recognized the world over. I find a fitting comparison in the field of chemistry, where one can safely drink H2O, but once another individually harmless oxygen atom joins the party, the corrosive H2O2 (better known as hydrogen peroxide) could finagle you an expensive ticket to the ICU.
While nothing about grammar will send you to the hospital, my point remains: the human brain’s ability to utilize language in such fine, precise ways, illustrates the magnificent nuances of meaning we can express to each other through seemingly arbitrary teeth-clicks and tongue-twists.
So, the next time a sentence featuring my beloved subjunctive mood teeters on the tip of your tongue, remember just how incredible you are for mastering the ability to speak your mind and heart without so much as a second thought.
Photo Caption: The subjunctive mood is a crucial element of the English language
Photo Credit: Unsplash