)
If any member _absents_ himself, he shall pay a fine. (Indicative =
Subjunctive.)
You _shall_ go. (Indicative = Imperative.)
After memorizing all the terms and forms belonging to the conjugation here
outlined, the student will find that he has gained little to aid him in the
use of language. For instance, in this synopsis of the Subjunctive are
found nineteen forms. As there are three persons in the singular and three
in the plural, we have one hundred and fourteen subjunctive forms! How
confusing all this must be to the student, who, in his use of the
subjunctive, needs to distinguish only such as these: If he _be_, If he
_were_, If he _teach_! Beyond these, the subjunctive manner of assertion is
discovered from the structure of the sentence or the relation of clauses,
not from the conjugation of the verb.
Those English authors and their American copyists who eliminate the
Potential Mode from their scheme of conjugation tell us that the so-called
potential auxiliaries are either independent verbs in the indicative or are
subjunctive auxiliaries. With the meager instruction given by any one or by
all of these authors, the student will find it exceedingly difficult to
determine when these auxiliaries are true subjunctives.
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