Mandative Subjunctive Triggers in American EnglishA Corpus—Based Case Study

閆常偉

【Abstract】Subjunctive mood is considered to be disappearing and losing its value. And the importance attached to subjunctive mood has changed with the development of theoretical and practical study. This paper will focus on mandative subjunctive by looking into the performance of so called triggers. And the distribution of selected mandative subjunctive triggers in different registers can be presented.

【Key words】mandative subjunctive； triggers； American English； corpus

1. Introduction

According to Randolf Quirk， the subjunctive contains “mandative subjunctive” and “suasive expressions”. The former means “a command or order”， and the latter indicates “to urge， persuade”. The subjunctive form is defined as mandative if it occurs in that -clauses after verbs， adjectives， or nouns that express a necessity， plan， or intention for the future. And the subjunctive mood can be divided into two large categories： present and past subjunctive. Generally， the mandative subjunctive in English consists of a main trigger， a that-clause， and a subjunctive verb form.

This paper will focus on American English， and the main point lies on the distribution of mandative triggers in different registers： spoken， fiction， magazine， news and academic. The mandative subjunctive triggered by nouns， verbs， and adjectives will be examined and the relationship between them as well.

2. Material and method

The data of this study comes from the Corpus of Contemporary American English （COCA）. The American English is chosen because there is more mandative subjunctive than in British English. In addition， this corpus consists of five registers which are almost balanced. Five items are selected respectively from previously defined mandative subjunctive noun， verb， and adjective triggers for the availability of operation and frequency： nouns including insistence， request， recommendation， order， stipulation； verbs including ask， insist， order， request and stipulate； and adjectives including important， critical， essential， vital， and crucial.

First the key words with a that-clause are selected； then all the sentences that do not belong to content sentence are sifted out； at last， sentences left are looked into to judge whether they are mandative subjunctive or not. However， when plural subjects or second person are involved， it is difficult to distinguish whether the sentence is mandative subjunctive or not from verb forms. When situations alike happen， the sentences will be judged from meaning， for form is out of question. Then frequency of each item in every register is calculated for observation.

3. Data and analysis

3.1 About noun mandative triggers

Among the five nouns， insistence triggers the most mandative subjective sentences， request the second， and followed by recommendation， order， and stipulation. For register distribution， insistence appears in academic the most， and is closely followed by news， while fiction the least. There are 28 mandative subjunctive sentences triggered by request in news which is the most， and then academic and spoken share the same frequency of 24， while there are only 8 instances in fiction. For recommendation， the highest frequency lies in academic and news and in fiction only 5 instances are found. As for order， it again triggers the most cases of mandative subjunctive in news for 27 times， much more than the following register of academic. Stipulation shows up as mandative subjunctive triggers for 16 times in academic， followed by news and magazine.

To sum up， for the five nouns involved， they do trigger mandative subjunctive with that-clause， with the most in the register of news， then academic， magazine， spoken， while fewer in fiction.

3.2 About verb mandative triggers

Then it comes to verb triggers. For ask， there are 468 mandative subjunctive sentences in news， far more than other registers. According to the sentences retrieved， there are also a great number of sentences that use ask to indicate the command from certain offices and organizations. Insist also trigger lots of mandative subjunctive sentences， with 343 instances in spoken， 223 in news， 203 in academic and 108 in fiction. And there are only 12 in magazine. Then it comes to the register of academic， spoken， fiction and magazine， with the number of 79， 69， 35， and 12 respectively. Request in academic triggers more mandative subjunctive sentences than in other registers， which is on the contrary to common speculation. Stipulate does not appear much compared with the other four words， whose frequency is 29 in academic， 5 in fiction， and the differences between the other three registers is petty.

For all the five verbs， there are fewest mandative subjunctives in fiction， which is in agreement to common sense. The main feature of fiction is to expression certain feeling or to construct a miniature of society， which needs to be made as real as possible and thus less special mood is employed. News witnesses most mandative subjunctive sentences and then spoken. This phenomenon is obvious and in concordance with the meaning expressed by mandative subjunctive as command. As a result， the spoken， which is seen as not that solid and retrievable， uses such words to express personal emotion with strong force， and news has the authority to give such requests.

3.3 About adjective mandative triggers

The adjective mandative triggers are taken into consideration when they take a that-clause and the adjectives are used to describe the content of the subordinate clause. Among the examined adjectives， important occupies the highest frequency， and most in the academic， then magazine， spoken， news， and last the fiction. Critical also triggers mandative subjunctive sentences at a high ration， while it exists in academic far more than other registers. And this trend remains when essential is under study. Vital has an unbalanced distribution with most in academic of 67， followed by spoken of 27， magazine of 17， news of 7， and fiction of 2. Crucial concentrates in magazine with 49 instances. It does not appear a lot in spoken and fiction， with 8 and 5 instances respectively.

From the perspective of register， academic and news include more critical， followed by essential and important. It is fair that vital and crucial are used less for their meaning of absolute certainty. In fiction， magazine， and spoken， important take the bigger portion， for it is more casual and suitable for ordinary communication than the others. All in all， fiction again contains the fewest adjective mandative triggers studied.

In conclusion of above analysis， mandative verb has the strongest force to produce mandative subjunctive， comparing to adjectives and nouns， and adjectives works better than nouns.

4. Conclusion

Although the present study does not exhaust all lexical items functioning as mandative triggers， the result is still available. Initially， mandative subjunctive remain lively. These lexical items still serve this function and keep strong. Subsequently， during the process of judging whether the lexical item is a mandative trigger， it does not matter a lot whether it is coincides with that-clauses expressing mandative meaning. At last， although both semantic and formal factors are standards for deciding mandative subjective， meaning should come into the stage. It is hoped that the study of mandative subjunctive triggers can be put forward with the development of corpus.

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