How and when is the subjunctive used?

[Darren]

My teacher said something about uncertainty and to express an opinion or belief. I am still not too certain about how it would be used. Help?

[George Hunt]

The subjunctive was brought up on this site a little while back.

http://www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk/forum/topics/very-quick-q...

I think that when "que" (meaning  "that")  is used , that that is an  indication that  you might want to think about using the subjunctive.

Here is another page on this site that should be of help

http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/grammar/subjunctive_what_is.shtml

[Neil Coffey]

As a starter to help explain what the subjunctive is, consider these sets of sentences of English, and in each case imagine that the sentence is followed by "Yes, I agree".

(1a) He did the washing up last night.

"Yes, I know/agree." 

(1b) He'll do the washing up tomorrow night.

"Yes, I know/agree." 

 

(1a) Him doing the washing up (if it was him that did it) really helped us.

"Yes, I know/agree."

(1b) Him doing the washing up (if he does it) will really help us.

"Yes, I know/agree."

In (1), you're making an assertion: you're actually stating that something happened or will happen. Notice that adding "Yes, I know" or "Yes, I agree." is acknowledging or agreeing with the actual fact of whether the person did/will do the washing up.

But now look at (2). These include the phrase "him doing the washing up". But this phrase isn't actually making an assertion about the act of washing up-- if you like, it's just expressing a "mental snapshot" of that imagined situation. If you say "Yes, I agree" in this case, you aren't actually agreeing with whether the person did/will do the washing up, but rather with the fact that it potentially helped/will help. Notice how you can even add the phrases in brackets and the sentences and agreement still make sense.

In English, we have a number of mechanisms to express a non-assertion. In French and various other languages, there is a specific verb form that generally expresses a non-assertion. And that verb form is usually referred to as the "subjunctive".

Now consider these sentences which also help to illustrate the difference:

(a) He says that Sarah is coming tomorrow.

(b) The Prime Minister declared that pasties are delicious.

(c) He is demanding that Sarah comes tomorrow.

(d) We are sorry that your poodle has died.

Now look at what happens when you try to "switch" these sentences round into 'narrative' format:

(a) Sarah is coming tomorrow, he says.

(b) Pasties are delicious, the Prime Minister declared.

(c) Sarah comes tomorrow, he is demanding.

(d) Your poodle has died, we are sorry.

You see that switching the sentences round in (a) and (b) works, because "Sarah is coming tomorrow" and "Pasties are delicious" are assertions. But in (c) and (d), the switch doesn't work. That's because in (c) and (d) the bit following "that" isn't actually an assertion. Essentially they're "snapshots of a situation being imagined/recollected" similar to the "him doing the washing up" case above. In these cases, French would generally use a subjunctive form of the verb in (c) and (d) for the equivalent of "that Sarah comes" and "your poodle has died".

Now, what these means in practice, is that in some uses of the subjunctive, it is sometimes loosely associated with a belief or opinion, because in order to express beliefs/opinions, we often invoke "snapshots" of what we're having the belief/opinion about -- as you can see in (d), for example, a phrase like "We are sorry that..." would tend to trigger a subjunctive.

Things are actually a bit more complex, and for the sake of being practical, it is common to learn lists of some common verbs/constructions that are typically accompanied by a subjunctive. But I hope the above gives you a feel for what in essence what the subjunctive is: a subjunctive verb form tends to mark an "imagined/recollected mental snapshot of a situation", whereas the "normal" indicative verb form tends to mark a more straightforward assertion that something happened/will happen etc.

When it comes to the practicalities, I have written various pages on when to use the subjunctive in French which will hopefully get you started.

[Peter En]

athis should also help as well;

http://www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk/forum/topics/verbs-functi...

I quote Neil:

"Where the -ing form has an expressed subject in English, the equivalent is often to use a subjunctive in French:"

which is also evident here:

Him doing the washing up (if it was him that did it) really helped us.