MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH

If you are a new user, click here to
read the Overview to this section

Tricky subjunctive sentences trip academic cleric and reporter alike

Last March, I decided to discontinue My Media English Watch in the Forum after doing it without letup for two years and nine months. This was because I felt that there was no longer a need for it, the usually sizable stream of faulty English that I’d find in my target media outlets having steadily diminished to a trickle. Recently, however, I came across two very arresting grammar errors in a very controversial news story in a leading Metro Manila broadsheet, so arresting that I thought they merited this one-time reprise of my media grammar and usage critiques.

Here’s that news story with the grammar errors italicized:

So precisely what’s wrong with the English grammar of the news story above?

Let’s first tackle the direct quote from Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, president of the Ateneo de Manila University:

“As there is a spectrum of views on this ethical and public policy issue, I ask all those who are engaged in the Christian formation of our students to ensure that the Catholic position on this matter continues to be taught in our classes, as we have always done,” Villarin said.

I’m positive that in the sentence above, the clause “I ask all those who are engaged in the Christian formation of our students to ensure that the Catholic position on this matter continues to be taught in our classes, as we have always done” is in the subjunctive mood, not in the usual indicative mood. This being the case, the verb “continues” should take the subjunctive inflection by shedding off the “s” at its tail end and that sentence should then read as follows:

“I ask all those who are engaged in the Christian formation of our students to ensure that the Catholic position on this matter continue to be taught in our classes, as we have always done.”

We will recall that statements in the indicative mood seek to give the impression that the speaker is talking about real-world situations in a straightforward, truthful manner. And from a usage standpoint, the operative verb of an indicative statement takes its normal inflection in all the tenses and typically obeys the subject-verb agreement rule at all times. Here’s an example of a sentence in the indicative mood, where the verb “be” inflects to its normal third-person form “is”: “The Philippines is the world’s second largest labor exporter, next only to Mexico.”

In contrast, the subjunctive mood denotes acts or states that are contingent on possible outcomes of the speaker’s wish, desire, or doubt, as opposed to denoting acts and states in real-world situations, which is what the indicative mood does, or to expressing direct commands, which is what the imperative mood does in turn. From an inflection standpoint, verbs in the subjunctive third-person singular exhibit baffling behavior: they drop the expected “-s” (or “-es”) at their tail end and take their base form instead, as the verb “heed” does in this sentence: “It is essential that she heed the people’s clamor.” (To write that sentence with the verb in its normal indicative form—“heeds”—is grammatically wrong: “It is essential that she heeds the people’s clamor.”)

Specifically, then, the main clause of Fr. Villarin’s statement should be in the subjunctive form because it uses a verb—“ask”—that conveys effort on the part of the speaker to impose his will on other people. Other verbs of this kind are “move,” “insist,” “propose,” “prefer,” and “recommend.” When each of these verbs are substituted for “demanded” in a statement, the verb in the “that”-clause takes the subjunctive form: “We demanded [moved, asked, insisted, proposed, preferred, recommended] that our company stop giving business to that bank.” In all cases, the verb “stop” in the “that”-clause takes the present-tense subjunctive form (the verb’s infinitive form without the “to”) as opposed to the indicative “stops.”

It is for this reason that Fr. Villarin’s subjunctive statement, as I have earlier indicated, needs to be grammatically corrected as follows:

“I ask all those who are engaged in the Christian formation of our students to ensure that the Catholic position on this matter continue to be taught in our classes, as we have always done.”

Now let’s take up the news reporter’s grammatically erroneous indirect quote—a more glaring error, I must say—of another statement by Fr. Villarin:

“The university will also support the Church in its future actions should the bill is passed by Congress, Villarin said.”

The indirectly quoted statement, “The university will also support the Church in its future actions should the bill is passed by Congress,” is grammatically wrong, for it’s actually another variety of a subjunctive mood sentence that should take the following form:

“The university will also support the Church in its future actions should the bill be passed by Congress, Villarin said.”

This is because in the present-tense subjunctive, as in Fr. Villarin’s indirectly quoted statement above, the verb “be” exhibits this deviant behavior: it doesn’t change form at all no matter what person or number is taken by its subject. Take a look at these subjunctive sentences to get a feel of that deviant behavior: “She demanded that I be here by noon.” “We ask that you be at the party tonight.” “The judge ruled that he be held indefinitely.” “She recommended that they be suspended for a week.”

We can thus see that in the news story in question here, a high-ranking religious academic and a presumably seasoned newspaper reporter have both been mercilessly tripped by the tricky subjunctive. (September 2, 2012)

Click to read responses or post a response

View the complete list of postings in this section