TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I

GENERAL RULES

Recommendations.

I. Believing, Thinking

II. Feeling, Emotional Opinion

III. Wishing, Ordering, Forbidding, Permitting

IV. Impersonal Expressions

V. Expectation, Fear, Doubt, Denial, Prevention

VI. Indefinite and Concessive Phrases

32

35

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THE FRENCH SUBJUNCTIVE

PART I. GENERAL RULES

In French the Subjunctive is the favorite mood for the expression of uncertainty. It is found chiefly in subordinate clauses, and especially when such clauses follow a principal verb taken negatively or interrogatively.

Recommendations. Beyond this general remark, whose necessary vagueness renders it of little value, no a priori reasoning about the nature of the French subjunctive mood is to be expected in this book. Such reasoning not only leads to disappointment in teaching the use of this mood, but it becomes almost ridiculous when one notices the widely varying purposes subserved by the subjunctive form even in modern French.

The writer's aim, then, will be to present to the learner the facts about the French subjunctive mood as it is to-day. This will be done by means of examples taken from contemporary authors, and if quotations from works earlier than the nineteenth century appear, they must be understood as confirming present usage, not as exemplifying that of former times.

The student, once in possession of the facts, will draw his own inferences as to the function or functions of the mood.

But, first, let it be understood that the French subjunctive mood bears little resemblance to the moods in German and English which are called by the same name. The Latin subjunctive, too, although the historical grammarian rightly sees in it the early type from which the French mood has developed, affords no real clew to the actual use of the French. On the contrary, reference to it merely confuses the student. Any preconceived idea that a knowledge of German or Latin will solve French subjunctive problems should be laid aside at the start.

Moreover, almost no help is to be drawn from the etymology of the word "subjunctive." It will not furnish us a key on which we can rely. Many clauses which are subordinate and joined to others are in French invariable in their use of the indicative mood. And again, the subjunctive mood appears in a great number of expressions which are perfectly independent in their form and essence. Only by a grammatical fiction, if the term may be permitted, can we maintain that vive le roi and plût à Dieu, for instance, are dependent clauses.

Finally, it is earnestly recommended that the student pay careful attention to each section of Part I where the main facts of subjunctive syntax are briefly presented, practising in connection with each group the exercise intended to accompany it. No theorizing or reasoning will take the place of the mere observation and drudgery which these exercises are planned to supply. When this work has been done, and not until it has been done thoroughly, Part II, on modifications and exceptions, should be taken up in the same manner.

Exceptions are worse than valueless to one who does not firmly possess the main rules of the subject. The bane of students of modern languages is the grammarian's habit of presenting simultaneously a rule and its exception, for the average mind invariably begins by confusing the two things.

It is hoped that the complete separation of principles and exceptions in this book will induce the teacher to separate the investigation of Parts I and II by an appreciable interval of time devoted to practice.

The classification of subjunctive constructions given in Part I is thought to be clearer than any the writer might have borrowed. Like all others it is arbitrary, but it has proved its advantages in actual use.

Part I is meant to be studied with care. Part II is offered chiefly for reference.

(181.270.6)

Section I. Believing, Thinking, etc. 40.702

Je crois qu'il viendra.

I believe that he will come.

Je ne crois pas qu'il vienne.

7107

716, 728,748

I do not believe that he will come.

Croyez-vous qu'il vienne?

Do you believe that he will come?

Observe in the preceding sentences that when the principal verb is affirmative, the dependent clause has the indicative mood. When the principal verb is negative, or interrogative, the dependent clause has the subjunctive mood.