5 ms·

"If this were an isolated example" This always bugs me, damn grammar.

by cliveowen 13y ago

afandian 13y ago
What's wrong with that?
- adrianb 13y ago
  this was / these were
  - afandian 13y ago
    It's not quite as simple as tense and agreement though. This example is the subjunctive mood (and it is correct). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive Unless I completely missed your point and you felt that the correct grammar clashed with your intuition, in which case I apologise, and I suppose it depends on your linguistic surroundings when you learn the language.
- cliveowen 13y ago
  I know it's not wrong, it's just that every time I see it, it feels wrong.
  - afandian 13y ago
    Okay. As I said in my comment further down, I suppose this depends on your linguistic surroundings when you learned to speak. To me using 'were' in the incorrect mood feels wrong. I'm not a strict grammarian (I had to look that reference up to double-check before posting), and my feel for grammar is intuitive rather than learned from verb tables. Obviously the verb-tables (or fragments of them) are encoded in that haze of language in some latent form, but it's entirely down to the environment in which I learned to speak. Acquisition of grammar is a fascinating topic. Can anyone can recommend any books on the subject?
    - mogrim 13y ago
      Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" is quite an entertaining look at English (mainly British) grammar.
    - ghaff 13y ago
      Since you asked specifically about the acquisition of language, Steven Pinker has written a number of books that touch on the topic, e.g. The Language Instinct. Note that there are a number of conflicting theories about language and how it's acquired so probably no single book will give you an unbiased view of the current best thinking in the space.
      - afandian 13y ago
        Cool. There's a number of Pinkers floating around my home, I might just pick one up.
nwalfield 13y ago
"If this were" is an example of the subjunctive mood in English. It expresses a counter-factual assertion. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood#English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood#English
- danso 13y ago
  I'm the opposite of the GP, when I see the subjunctive not being used (e.g. "If I was a rich man"), it bugs me...and the proper use of the subjunctive is actually refreshing to me and is almost a litmus test for me that the writer really knows their grammar (and yes, I know the use of "their" will really rankle some people :) ). That said, I don't think I would've ever been aware of the difference between "were" and "was" in the singular had I never studied a foreign language in high school, in which the subjunctive was explicitly defined.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    If this is really an issue for you, you should probably be aware that there is no subjunctive form in "if I were a rich man" (CGOTEL terms that form "irrealis"). The english subjunctive can be observed in e.g. "I ask that you be there on time".
    - danso 13y ago
      Why is there no subjunctive form in "If I were a rich man"? I do agree that "If I was a rich man" would also be technically correct in as many contexts, though, so that was a bad example (but I haven't had my coffee yet and that's the first example that comes to mind :) )
      - thaumasiotes 13y ago
        Some good commentary (from syntacticians) is here: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3809 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3809 http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001192.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001192.h... The first link is by one of the authors of CGOTEL, and comes out strongly against calling that were-form subjunctive; the second link is by another syntactician, and is a little more ambivalent. What follows is a mixture of (a) my understanding of some terminology and facts, and (b) my interpretation of the arguments: "Subjunctive" is a label for a type of sentence mood, where "mood" has to do with the relationship between the sentence and reality. Subjunctive mood is usually, like indicative and imperative moods, marked on the verb. (In my mind, interrogative is also a mood, but it is usually marked on the sentence, not on the verb.) Indicative and imperative moods have fairly narrow commonly-agreed semantics, but subjunctive is more of a catchall (my second link above will warn of the danger of confusing syntactic terminology with semantics, but while they don't correspond perfectly, they are related). We can quickly note that "if I were a rich man", a counterfactual clause, easily fits into area that can be covered by a "subjunctive" mood in various languages. It's widely agreed that the following construction in English should be called "subjunctive": I ask that you be polite to him. The subjunctive form of "be" is so distinct from any other finite form that it makes for good examples. Any time a finite verb can be realized as "be", we're comfortable calling it subjunctive ("be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread"). That construction is productive today and nicely applies to any english verb: I'm going to have to ask that your son return my necklace. The argument against calling "if I were a rich man" subjunctive makes the following points: - It doesn't use the subjunctive form. - It is not obviously related to any construction that does use a subjunctive form. - Though it is obviously a special form, it only applies to a single verb, and even there it's not required (Zwicky, my second link, talks about this some more). This can raise questions about how much it's a "real phenomenon", vs how much it's basically just an archaism. - In the past, subjunctive forms could appear in English conditionals, but they no longer do. Zwicky will tell you (and this is a point that follows my own inclinations well) that as long as you've described the rules correctly, the names that you give to the rules ("subjunctive") are irrelevant. So in that sense, you can call any form you want "subjunctive", as long as you're willing to extend the description to every instance of an analogous form, which is easy with "if I were a rich man", as it is the only form of its kind. - However, as the generally-agreed subjunctive is a living and useful phenomenon, and is unrelated to the were-form, it might be nice to give the were-form a name that won't confuse people.

"If this were an isolated example" This always bugs me, damn grammar.

afandian 13y ago

What's wrong with that?

adrianb 13y ago
this was / these were
- afandian 13y ago
  It's not quite as simple as tense and agreement though. This example is the subjunctive mood (and it is correct). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive Unless I completely missed your point and you felt that the correct grammar clashed with your intuition, in which case I apologise, and I suppose it depends on your linguistic surroundings when you learn the language.
cliveowen 13y ago
I know it's not wrong, it's just that every time I see it, it feels wrong.
- afandian 13y ago
  Okay. As I said in my comment further down, I suppose this depends on your linguistic surroundings when you learned to speak. To me using 'were' in the incorrect mood feels wrong. I'm not a strict grammarian (I had to look that reference up to double-check before posting), and my feel for grammar is intuitive rather than learned from verb tables. Obviously the verb-tables (or fragments of them) are encoded in that haze of language in some latent form, but it's entirely down to the environment in which I learned to speak. Acquisition of grammar is a fascinating topic. Can anyone can recommend any books on the subject?
  - mogrim 13y ago
    Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" is quite an entertaining look at English (mainly British) grammar.
  - ghaff 13y ago
    Since you asked specifically about the acquisition of language, Steven Pinker has written a number of books that touch on the topic, e.g. The Language Instinct. Note that there are a number of conflicting theories about language and how it's acquired so probably no single book will give you an unbiased view of the current best thinking in the space.
    - afandian 13y ago
      Cool. There's a number of Pinkers floating around my home, I might just pick one up.

nwalfield 13y ago

"If this were" is an example of the subjunctive mood in English. It expresses a counter-factual assertion. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood#English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood#English

danso 13y ago
I'm the opposite of the GP, when I see the subjunctive not being used (e.g. "If I was a rich man"), it bugs me...and the proper use of the subjunctive is actually refreshing to me and is almost a litmus test for me that the writer really knows their grammar (and yes, I know the use of "their" will really rankle some people :) ). That said, I don't think I would've ever been aware of the difference between "were" and "was" in the singular had I never studied a foreign language in high school, in which the subjunctive was explicitly defined.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  If this is really an issue for you, you should probably be aware that there is no subjunctive form in "if I were a rich man" (CGOTEL terms that form "irrealis"). The english subjunctive can be observed in e.g. "I ask that you be there on time".
  - danso 13y ago
    Why is there no subjunctive form in "If I were a rich man"? I do agree that "If I was a rich man" would also be technically correct in as many contexts, though, so that was a bad example (but I haven't had my coffee yet and that's the first example that comes to mind :) )
    - thaumasiotes 13y ago
      Some good commentary (from syntacticians) is here: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3809 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3809 http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001192.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001192.h... The first link is by one of the authors of CGOTEL, and comes out strongly against calling that were-form subjunctive; the second link is by another syntactician, and is a little more ambivalent. What follows is a mixture of (a) my understanding of some terminology and facts, and (b) my interpretation of the arguments: "Subjunctive" is a label for a type of sentence mood, where "mood" has to do with the relationship between the sentence and reality. Subjunctive mood is usually, like indicative and imperative moods, marked on the verb. (In my mind, interrogative is also a mood, but it is usually marked on the sentence, not on the verb.) Indicative and imperative moods have fairly narrow commonly-agreed semantics, but subjunctive is more of a catchall (my second link above will warn of the danger of confusing syntactic terminology with semantics, but while they don't correspond perfectly, they are related). We can quickly note that "if I were a rich man", a counterfactual clause, easily fits into area that can be covered by a "subjunctive" mood in various languages. It's widely agreed that the following construction in English should be called "subjunctive": I ask that you be polite to him. The subjunctive form of "be" is so distinct from any other finite form that it makes for good examples. Any time a finite verb can be realized as "be", we're comfortable calling it subjunctive ("be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread"). That construction is productive today and nicely applies to any english verb: I'm going to have to ask that your son return my necklace. The argument against calling "if I were a rich man" subjunctive makes the following points: - It doesn't use the subjunctive form. - It is not obviously related to any construction that does use a subjunctive form. - Though it is obviously a special form, it only applies to a single verb, and even there it's not required (Zwicky, my second link, talks about this some more). This can raise questions about how much it's a "real phenomenon", vs how much it's basically just an archaism. - In the past, subjunctive forms could appear in English conditionals, but they no longer do. Zwicky will tell you (and this is a point that follows my own inclinations well) that as long as you've described the rules correctly, the names that you give to the rules ("subjunctive") are irrelevant. So in that sense, you can call any form you want "subjunctive", as long as you're willing to extend the description to every instance of an analogous form, which is easy with "if I were a rich man", as it is the only form of its kind. - However, as the generally-agreed subjunctive is a living and useful phenomenon, and is unrelated to the were-form, it might be nice to give the were-form a name that won't confuse people.