The wrong use of the English subjunctive—the mood of the language that allows us to speak of acts or states not as they really are but as possibilities or as outcomes of our wishes, desires, or doubts—recurs very often in Philippine journalism but hardly anybody makes a case against it. I have actually come across several instances of such misuse during the three years that I have been writing this column, but I let all of them pass without comment on the presumption that they were simply typographical or misreading errors. A few days ago, however, I came across a sentence in a newspaper column that left no doubt that it was unknowingly misusing the subjunctive. The construction used two verbs in a row in the incorrect subjunctive form, so I was sure that typographical error was not the culprit this time. The sentence, quoted verbatim here except for the subject (I used a fictitious name to avoid giving any political color to this grammar discussion), runs as follows: “It is not enough that Mr. Romano minimizes his public appearances or goes on self-exile.”

At first blush, of course, there seems to be nothing wrong with that sentence. After all, “Mr. Romano” is in the third-person singular, so it stands to reason that the verbs expressing his actions, “minimizes” and “goes,” should also be in the third person singular. This happens not to be the case, however. By some quirk in English usage, verbs in the singular third-person subjunctive ignore the subject-verb agreement rule. They drop the “-s” or “-es” at their tail ends and take the base form of the verb (the verb’s infinitive form without the “to”), so the verbs “minimizes” and “goes” become “minimize” and “go” instead. Thus, strange as it may seem, the correct construction of our subjunctive sentence specimen above is this: “It is not enough that Mr. Romano minimize his public appearances or go on self-exile.” (Unfortunately, when there’s only one operative verb in a subjunctive “that”-clause, copyeditors and proofreaders who don’t fully understand the subjunctive simply restore the missing “-s” or “-es,” so the wrong usage often gets into print looking simply like a typographical error.

The corrected sentence construction above is the so-called “necessity or parliamentary motion” or “jussive” form of the subjunctive. (In linguistics, “jussive” means an expression of command.) These two highly formal terms sound intimidating, but they neatly capture the insistent attitude of the speaker in this form of the subjunctive, which occur in subordinate “that”-clauses that state an implied command or indirectly express a wish, desire, intention, or necessity. We will discuss the particulars of subjunctive usage in much greater detail later on, but first, we need to clearly understand the behavior of the third-person form of operative verbs in subjunctive “that”-clauses.

Contrary to how verbs generally behave, verbs in present-tense subjunctive “that”-clauses don’t change form at all. In our subjunctive sentence specimen, for instance, the base verb forms “minimize” and “go” remain unchanged regardless of what number or person the subject takes. Look at the form those verbs take in the first person (“I,” “we”): “It is not enough that I minimize my public appearances or go on self-exile.” “It is not enough that we minimize our public appearances or go on self-exile.” In the second person (both the singular and plural “you”): “It is not enough that you minimize your public appearances or go on self-exile.” However, in the third-person singular (“he,” “she,” or actual name), we would expect these verbs to obey the subject-verb agreement rule: add “-s” or “-es” to their tail ends to become “minimizes” and “goes.” But the third-person subjunctive ignores that rule, too, using instead the verb’s base form like what the first person and second person forms do. This results in the following constructions as the correct subjunctive usage for the third person singular in the present tense: “It is not enough that he [she] minimize his [her] public appearances or go on self-exile.” “It is not enough that Mr. Romano minimize his public appearances or go on self-exile.”

Admittedly, this prescription for the subjunctive strongly goes against the grain of what most of us have learned about English usage. This is why many people remain doubtful and suspicious of the subjunctive and will actually go at great lengths to avoid using it. No matter how we feel about it, however, the subjunctive is a very important form of the English language, so we need to clearly understand its unique function and usage if we want to make ourselves truly proficient in our English. (July 11, 2005)

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, July 11, 2005, © 2005 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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Part I

Both adjective phrases and adjective clauses serve to modify nouns and pronouns—meaning that they identify or give additional information about the subject or about the object receiving the action in a sentence. However, while an adjective phrase can simply be any kind of modifying phrase—perhaps a series of adjectives, an adjective modified by an adverb, a complement, a prepositional phrase, or a participle phrase—the adjective clause works as a dependent or subordinate clause in a sentence, and as such must have a subject and an operative verb.

To be able to do its work, the adjective clause (also called the relative clause) needs to link itself to the main clause of a sentence by making use of one of the following: the relative pronouns “that,” which,” “who,” “whom,” and “whose” and the pronouns “when” and “where.” The adjective clause can then function in any of three ways: as modifier of the subject in the main clause, as modifier of the object of the operative verb in the main clause, and as object of the preposition.

Now, consider the following two sentences: “Employees who are working on contractual basis are not entitled to regular company benefits.” “The three applicants didn’t possess the skills that we needed for the position.” The first uses an adjective clause, “who are working on contractual basis are not entitled to regular company benefits,” to modify the subject “employees,” and the second, “that we needed for the position,” to modify the object of the operative verb in the main clause, which is “skills.”

We will see that in the case of the first sentence, even if both the relative pronoun “who” and the operative verb “are” are dropped from the adjective clause “who are working on contractual basis,” the sentence will still work perfectly: “Employees working on contractual basis are not entitled to regular company benefits.” The second sentence, too, will actually read and sound better when the relative pronoun “that” is dropped from the adjective clause “that we needed for the position:” “The three applicants didn’t possess the skills we needed for the position.”

What actually happened here was that we were able to reduce the adjective clauses into adjective phrases. Indeed, whenever possible and desirable, an adjective clause that uses the relative pronouns “who,” “which,” and “that” can be reduced into an adjective phrase.

Here, to begin with, are three of the most common ways of effecting such a reduction:

(1) When the operative verb in the adjective clause is in the active form, drop the relative pronoun and convert the operative verb to its progressive form. For example, the adjective clause “who work as full-time professionals” in the sentence “Women who work as full-time professionals are more likely to remain unmarried” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “working as full-time professionals” to make the sentence more concise, as follows: “Women working as full-time professionals are more likely to remain unmarried.”

(2) When the operative verb in the adjective clause is already in the progressive form, simply drop the relative pronoun and the form of the verb “be.” For example, the adjective clause “that are living in the wild” in “Animals that are living in the wild sometimes no longer reproduce when kept in zoos” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “living in the wild” to make the sentence more concise, as follows: “Animals living in the wild sometimes no longer reproduce when kept in zoos.”

(3) When the operative verb in the adjective clause is in the passive form, drop the relative pronoun and the form of the verb “be.” For example, the adjective clause “who are provided proper nutrition” in “Indigent children who are provided with proper nutrition can grow into productive members of society” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “provided with proper nutrition” to make the sentence more concise, as follows: “Indigent children provided with proper nutrition can grow into productive members of society.” (December 27, 2008)

Part II

We saw in the previous essay that generally, adjective clauses that use the relative pronouns “who,” “which,” and “that” can be reduced by dropping the relative pronoun and the form of the verb “be” used in the adjective clause. For example, in the sentence “Many politicians who are elected to public office often treat their positions as family heirlooms,” the adjective clause “who are elected to office” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “elected to public office” to produce this more concise, forthright sentence: “Many politicians elected to public office often treat their positions as family heirlooms.”

Recall that adjective clauses, which are also called relative clauses, can either be restrictive or nonrestrictive. It is restrictive when it provides essential information about the subject of the sentence, as the clause “that has just ended” in “The year that has just ended was notable for its severe economic turbulence.” On the other hand, it is nonrestrictive when it provides information that isn’t essential to the meaning of the sentence (as indicated by the commas setting the clause off from the main clause), as the clause “which was uninhabited a decade ago” in “The island, which was uninhabited a decade ago, is now a world-class resort.”

Now, whether restrictive or nonrestrictive, an adjective clause can often be reduced to an adjective phrase to make the sentence more concise. In the first example given in the preceding paragraph, for instance, the restrictive adjective clause “that has just ended” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “just ended” to yield this sentence: “The year just ended was notable for its severe economic turbulence.” Similarly, in the second example, the nonrestrictive adjective clause “which was uninhabited a decade ago” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “uninhabited a decade ago” to yield this sentence: “The island, uninhabited a decade ago, is now a world-class resort.”

Note that when a nonrestrictive adjective clause modifying the subject of a sentence is reduced to an adjective phrase, as in the example above, the adjective phrase can alternatively be placed in front of the subject of the sentence: “Uninhabited a decade ago, the island is now a world-class resort.” This can’t be done in the case of reduced restrictive adjective clauses. In fact, in the case of the first sentence with the restrictive adjective clause reduced to an adjective phrase, putting “just ended” up front yields this fractured sentence: “Just ended, the year was notable for its severe economic turbulence.”

We must also beware that it isn’t always possible to reduce an adjective clause to an adjective phrase. For example, in the sentence “The rain that fell in torrents yesterday was the heaviest this year,” it’s not possible at all to reduce the adjective clause “that fell in torrents this morning.” To simply drop the relative pronoun “that” from the adjective clause produces this fractured sentence “The rain fell in torrents yesterday was the heaviest this year;” on the other hand, following the first reduction procedure described in Part I of this essay, to drop “that” and convert “fell” to the progressive-form “falling” to reduce the adjective clause to the adjective phrase “falling in torrents this morning” yields this semantically dubious, time-skewed sentence, “The rain falling in torrents yesterday was the heaviest this year.”

For an even better feel of the limits of adjective clause reduction, try doing it for this sentence: “Customers who have missed the show are disappointed.” (Were you able to do it?)

Indeed, we need to play it by ear when faced with the choice of reducing an adjective clause to an adjective phrase. If the reduction makes the sentence sound better without altering its sense, go right ahead. But if the reduction doesn’t sound right or changes the meaning of the sentence, simply leave the adjective clause the way it is, relative pronoun and all. (January 3, 2009)

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, December 27, 2008 and January 3, 2009, © 2008 and © 2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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