Saturday 23 November 2019

Reported Proposals In Subjunctive Mode


Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 525):
In American English in particular, reported proposals are often in the ‘subjunctive’ (where the third person singular is the base form of the verb); for example:
||| The negotiations were suspended in January || when Syria insisted || Israel commit to returning to prewar 1967 borders. ||| 
||| Did they suggest || the attorney general investigate? ||| 
||| When Evans returned to Sydney with glowing reports of this fertile land [[he’d found]], || the Governor ordered || that a road be built. ||| 
||| Perhaps it was history that ordained || that it be here, at the Cape of Good Hope [[that we should lay the foundation stone of our new nation]]. |||