229. Cautions.-(a) Unless the past participle has just been used, do not omit it after have. This sentence is correct: I've seen that man; I'm sure that I have. Here the past participle seen need not be repeated because, having just been used, it may be understood; but in the following sentences the past participles written above the line must be inserted, or the sentence will be ungrammatical: been Λ 1. The question is one which has not and never will be settled. objected 2. He always has and always will object. read 3. I never have and never intend to read that book. (b) Never use a past participle after done. Instead of "I've done been there," "He's done gone," etc., say "I've already been there," "He has already gone," etc. EXERCISES (1) Conjugate through the six tenses the verbs have, be, and do. (2) Why is it incorrect to say "I done it," "He come too soon," "I've drank two glasses of ginger ale"? (3) What verbs have the same form for the three principal parts? (4) What verbs have two forms for the past tense? (5) Is there any choice between "It bursted" and "It busted"? (6) How do the principal parts of forget differ from those of get? Insert in each of the following blanks some form of lay or lie: Insert in each of the following blanks some form of III-MOOD 280. Illustrations of Mood. Compare the predicates in these sentences: 3. Oh, that he were here. 4. If he were here, he would decide for us. 5. Come at once. 6. Give us this day our daily bread. } (Subjunctive) } (Imperative) The first sentence asserts a fact, or at least a supposed fact; whether the speaker was mistaken or not it does not enter into the province of grammar to say. Grammar always takes a man at his word. Was in the second sentence also expresses a fact, an assumed fact; the speaker means to say "Is it a fact that he was here?" In the third sentence were expresses a wish contrary to fact; for "he" is not here. In the fourth sentence were expresses a condition contrary to fact; for it is evident again, as in the third sentence, that "he" is not here. The verbs in the last two sentences express command and entreaty respectively. 231. Mood is the function of a verb that indicates the way in which the action, being, or state of being is thought of. 232. The Indicative is the mood of supposed fact. 233. The Subjunctive is the mood of wish and condition. 234. The Imperative is the mood of command and entreaty. 235. The Indicative Mood. The six tenses given in § 219 are tenses of the indicative mood. The indicative may almost be called the universal mood. It has encroached steadily upon the subjunctive, so that in ordinary conversation the subjunctive is rarely heard in dependent clauses. The greatest triumph over the subjunctive was achieved when the indicative came to express a condition contrary to fact. Neither in Shakespeare nor in the Bible can you find such sentences as, If I was in your place, I should resign. If my father was alive, all would be different. The subjunctive were had to be used in both conditions. But to-day the indicative was is permissible. It is at least as old as Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1684). The indicative means, for example, "Suppose now that my father really was alive." It is the supposition as a whole that is now felt to be contrary to fact rather than the statement of the verb itself. With this wide extension of its territory, the indicative has annexed what used to be the special province of the subjunctive. NOTE. Even in the Bible the indicative, though not in a condition contrary to fact, was beginning to have the same function as the subjunctive: "Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remem berest." Matthew2 5 5: And Shakespeare, writing about the same time, makes one of his characters say: "If thou dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace himself on thee." 236. The Subjunctive Mood. As You Like It, 1, 1, 132 "The subjunctive mood, as a distinct flexional* form, is passing away. At the beginning of our period it was still in active operation. But now it is more and more neglected in hasty writing, as men find by experience that it is a thing of grace and refinement rather than of necessity. No obscurity results from employing indicative forms through every ramification of the sentence. Modern books no longer exhibit such constructions as: The men asked whether Simon were lodged there. Acts 10: 18 Signify to the chief captain that he bring him down. Acts 23:15 The last stronghold of the subjunctive is in certain set phrases, such as, if I be, if it be, if it were, if he have, etc. These remarks, however, apply only to prose; for the poet will not relinquish the subjunctive mood: he knows its value too well." 237. Distinctive Forms of the Subjunctive. The distinctive forms that have been left to the sub *Is Professor Earle an Englishman or an American? See § 91, (4). †John Earle, A Simple Grammar of English Now in Use (1898), page 132. |