Download or read book Semantics of the English Subjunctive written by Francis James and published by Vancouver, B.C. : University of British Columbia Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Francis James develops his theory that the Englishsubjunctive has one meaning. Explaining how modality expresses therelation between a representation and what is represented, Jamescompares the subjunctive to a 'blueprint,' a plan of what thearchitect intends the world to match, and the indicative to anartist's sketch of the same building, a 'record' to matchthe world. The subjunctive thus signifies the practicalworld-to-match-words modality, and the indicative, the theoreticalwords-to-match-world modality. In individual chapters, the author gives a unified account ofcurrent and earlier uses of the present and past subjunctive andcomments on how historical changes have affected the syntax of themoods. He extends his argument to demonstrate how the theory ofmodality can be applied to other modal forms in English and to moods inother languages.