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Subjunctive   Listen
adjective
Subjunctive  adj.  Subjoined or added to something before said or written.
Subjunctive mood (Gram.), that form of a verb which express the action or state not as a fact, but only as a conception of the mind still contingent and dependent. It is commonly subjoined, or added as subordinate, to some other verb, and in English is often connected with it by if, that, though, lest, unless, except, until, etc., as in the following sentence: "If there were no honey, they (bees) would have no object in visiting the flower." In some languages, as in Latin and Greek, the subjunctive is often independent of any other verb, being used in wishes, commands, exhortations, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Subjunctive" Quotes from Famous Books



... unnecessary thought. In the clause if he was here, if fully expresses the subjunctive condition, and it is quite unnecessary to express it a second time by using another form of the verb to be. And so the people who are using the English language are deciding, for the subjunctive form is rapidly becoming obsolete with the long ...
— On the Evolution of Language • John Wesley Powell

... of the terminal vowel of the common root are those from a (which is almost invariably the terminal vowel of Bantu verbs), (1), into e to form the subjunctive tense, (2) into i to give a negative sense in certain tenses. With these exceptions the vowel a almost invariably terminates verbal roots. The departures from this rule are so rare that it might almost be included among the elementary propositions ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... dependent on r, for in that case it would be in the subjunctive, but r is simply an adverb, correlative with the conjunction r in the next line: 'he will (sooner) give up his life, before he ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.



Words linked to "Subjunctive" :   mood, mode



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