Subjunctive Mood

The mood of a sentence is described as the mood of the sentence. The grammatical mood in English language is very different from the moods that you feel like angry, sad or happy etc.

Today we will discuss about one specific mood of the sentence that is subjunctive mood. In this article, we will talk about what exactly mood is, what is subjunctive mood and how to identify a sentence with subjunctive mood.

Mood

The nature of a sentence is termed as its mood. The only thing that the nature or mood of a sentence depends on is the verb of a sentence. The form that a verb takes in a sentence helps establish its mood weather it is a query, request or a command.

Example:

She is going abroad.

The above example shows the mood of the sentence to be simple indicative i.e. that it is stating a fact or giving some information. The verb is going helps us determine that.

Subjunctive Mood

When a sentence describes something that the writer is unsure about, the mood of that sentence is known to be subjunctive mood. In other words, when the verb of the sentence is such that it depicts the doubtful nature of sentence, the mood is subjunctive.

Example:

The match may be cancelled due to rain.

The above sentence, makes use of the word may which makes the possibility of something doubtful, thus the sentence is in subjunctive mood.

The sentences containing if clauses are usually in the subjunctive mood.

Example:

If he was here, it would not have happened.

Now the above sentence contains an if clause which suggests the doubtful or unsure nature of the sentence. Such a sentence is also an example of subjunctive mood.

A sentence is also in a subjunctive mood if the verb in a sentence is followed by one of these words ask/demand/determine/insist/move/order/pray/prefer/recommend/regret/request/require/suggest/wish.

Example:

I wish it rains today.

The boss demanded an explanation.

She regretted going there.

All the above sentence contain the verbs that determine the subjunctive mood of a sentence.