Subjunctive I in Simple Sentences

In simple sentences Subjunctive I is used:

• To express wish (in a few isolated expressions as a survival of the old use of this mood):

e.g. Long live our country!

Be ours a happy meeting!

Success attend you!

Good luck attend you!

Subjunctive I can be replaced by a modal phrase “may + infinitive”

e.g. May our country live long!

May success attend you!

• To express concession:

e.g. So be it! Be it so!

Come what will!

Happen what may!

Be this as it may!

Be it rain or snow…

Subjunctive I can be replaced by a modal phrase “let + infinitive”:

e.g. Let it be so!

Let come what will!

• In some set expressions:

e.g. Suffice it to say that

Heaven / God forbid! Heaven forgive smb. God save smb./smth from…

Thank God! God be thanked! God bless you! God bless me / my soul!

Far be it from me to do…

If truth be known…

…if need be

…as it were…

• In oaths and imprecations:

e.g. Manners / Charity be hanged! Confound it/ you/ these flies! Damn! God damn it! The devil take it! Hang it / all! Hang the fellow! Blast the fool!

• To express commands and requests, but only when the subject is an indefinite pronoun (somebody, everybody) or partitive combination (one of you):

e.g. Somebody go and fetch me a piece of chalk!

Everybody leave the room!

Subjunctive I can be replaced by “let + infinitive”:

e.g. Let somebody go and fetch me a piece of chalk!

The Suppositional Mood

• The Suppositional Mood is an analytical mood. It is formed by combining the auxiliary verb should for all persons with the Infinitive.

• The present Suppositional is formed by the auxiliary verb

should + Indefinite/Continuous Infinitive

e.g. It is impossible that he should say so.

It is disappointing that you should be ill.

It is disappointing that you should be lying ill.

• The Past Suppositional is formed by the auxiliary verb

should + Perfect / Perfect Continuous Infinitive

e.g. It is impossible that he should have said so.

It is disappointing that you should have been lying ill when we came to invite you to the party.

• The suppositional Mood represents an action as problematic, but not necessarily contradicting reality. The realization of the action may depend on certain circumstances, but these circumstances are not contrary to fact.

• It is not used in simple sentences.

Subjunctive I and the Suppositional Mood in Complex Sentences

(Subjunctives: the Present Subjunctive corresponds to Subjunctive I;

the Past Subjunctive – to Subjunctive II)

The structure of some complex sentences demands the use of the Suppositional Mood in subordinate clauses. In formal English Subjunctive I can be used instead of the Suppositional mood. In less formal English we use a present tense form (but not if the rest of the sentence is in past).