Past Perfect

Indicative	Subjunctive
I had worked	I had worked
you had worked	you had worked
he had worked	he had worked
she had worked	she had worked
it had worked	it had worked
we had worked	we had worked
they had worked	they had worked

Past Perfect Continuous

Indicative	Subjunctive
I had been working	I had been working
you had been working	you had been working
he had been working	he had been working
she had been working	she had been working
it had been working	it had been working
we he had been working	we had been working
they he had been working	they had been working

The following table summarizes the formation of the English Subjunctive tenses:

Tense	Auxiliary	Verb Form
Simple Present	do	bare infinitive
Present Continuous	be	present participle
Present Perfect	have	past participle
Present Perfect Continuous	have been	present participle
Simple Past	did	bare infinitive
Past Continuous	were	present participle
Past Perfect	had	past participle
Past Perfect Continuous	had been	present participle

The synthetic and analytical forms of the subjunctive mood.

The Subjunctive Mood has synthetic and analytical forms.

The synthetic forms of the Subjunctive Mood are:

1. the Present Subjunctive of all the verbs. The verb to be has the form be for all the persons Singular and Plural. In all other verbs the forms of the Present Subjunctive do not receive ending –s in the third person Singular.

The Present Subjunctive denotes an action referring to the present or future. This form is seldom used in Modern English. It may be found in poetry and in elevated prose, where these forms are archaisms used in scientific language and in the language of official documents.

E.g. Bless me! Where be the strawberries?

E.g. ’Tis not death I fear be it e’er so cruel.

E.g. It is demanded that you leave for London at once.

E.g. ‘If his request to meet the cast will clinch an essential injection of funds, so be it.’ (H. Bianchin)

The Present Subjunctive is used in American English in colloquial language.

E.g. All right, what do you propose we do?

E.g. It is necessary that you leave at once.

The Present Subjunctive also occurs in some set expressions and in simple sentences with optative meaning. Such sentences are usually exclamatory.

E.g. Manners be hanged!

E.g. Be it so! (So be it!)

E.g. It be time.

E.g. God forbid!

E.g. Manners be hanged!

E.g. God save the Queen!

E.g. Long live our friendship!

2. the Past Subjunctive* only of the verb to be. In the Past Subjunctive the verb to be has the form were for all the persons.

The Past Subjunctive does not necessarily express a past action. In adverbial clauses of condition it denotes an unreal condition referring to the present or future.

E.g. If I were you, I wouldn’t do it.

In other types of subordinate clauses the Past Subjunctive denotes an action simultaneous with the action expressed in the principal clause; thus it may refer to the present and to the past.

E.g. I wish you were here.

* see ‘Subjunctive II, its Forms, the Independent Use’.

The analytical forms of the Subjunctive Mood consist of the mood auxiliaries should, would, may (might) or shall (which is seldom used) and the infinitive of the notional verb.

E.g. I wish you could help me.

E.g. Wherever you may go, they’ll find you.

Mood auxiliaries have developed from modal verbs, which have lost their modality and serve to form the analytical Subjunctive.

To express wish the mood auxiliary may is used.

E.g. May success attend you!

E.g. May your noses be rubbed in your mistakes!

There are cases when mood auxiliaries retain a shade of modality, for instance the verb might in adverbial clauses of purpose.

E.g. She stepped back so that we might see him.

Exercise 14. Read the sentences. Translate the sentences into Russian. State the form of the Subjunctive Mood (Synthetic or Analytical). Name the moods used in the sentences.

1. It’s necessary you should inform us beforehand. 2. If I weren’t in such a good mood now, I would be offended. 3. How I wish I could be there now! 4. I repeated my request louder so that the old lady could hear me. 5. I wouldn’t buy this costume even if it were on sale! 6. She looks as if nothing had happened. 7. He arranged that we should have 3 meals a day. 8. My only fear is that she may learn the truth. 9. My suggestion is we should postpone our meeting. 10. If I had been more patient, they would have offered me that project. 11. But for his supervision, he wouldn’t have coped with this task. 12. Whatever you may say, I still trust him. 13. I’m sure she would read this text without a single mistake.