Your proposed construction of the sentence in question, “
If you had not been my wife at the time, I would have said you were crazy,” is faulty both grammatically and semantically. It incorrectly uses the past perfect conditional “If you had not been my wife” to convey the wrong idea that the woman referred to was previously the speaker’s wife but was no longer so (perhaps by divorce or legal separation or whatnot) at the time being referred to. This sense is precisely the opposite of what is intended, which is that the woman was indeed the speaker’s wife at the time referred to, for which reason he knew that she wasn’t crazy and, this being the case, he couldn’t have possibly said she was.
In contrast, by using the subjunctive past-tense “
If you were not my wife at the time,” the sentence “If you were not my wife at the time, I would have said you were crazy” correctly describes the hypothetical state or outcome—one thought of by the speaker at some point in the past—of an unreal situation or idea contrary to fact. Here, of course, the unreal situation or idea contrary to fact is “if you were not my wife at the time,” and the hypothetical state or outcome is “I would have said you were crazy.” The “were” in the “if”-clause or premise is the subjunctive “were,” while the “were” in the hypothetical state or outcome is the simple past-tense “were.”
I hope it’s clear by now that in the sentence under discussion, the subjunctive mood works to describe what would
inconceivably happen if someone assumes something unreal or untrue. This is distinct from the function of the so-called second conditional or unreal possibility sentence, where the speaker talks about a possible but very unlikely result that the stated future condition will be fulfilled; in short, the stated outcome is an unreal possibility. Indeed, it’s incorrect to say as you have said in your posting that subjunctive sentences are “present unreal conditional sentences” that use the subjunctive “were.” These two are entirely different grammatical constructs altogether.
At this point, to further clarify the issue about this distinction, I’m now posting here
“The maverick behavior of verbs in subjunctive sentences,” a subsequent column I wrote for my “English Plain and Simple” column in the March 23, 2013 issue of
The Manila Times:
The maverick behavior of verbs in subjunctive sentences
In my column last week, in reply to a question posed in Jose Carillo’s English Forum, I explained the tough and tricky difference between a subjunctive sentence and a second conditional or unreal possibility sentence. I said that subjunctive sentences are those that denote acts or states that are contingent on possible outcomes of the speaker’s wish, desire, or doubt, while second conditional or unreal possibility sentences are those that talk about a possible but very unlikely result that the stated future condition will be fulfilled.
Based on this distinction, I said that the first of the two sentences presented for analysis, “If you were not my wife, I would say you’re crazy,” is the correct subjunctive sentence, one that describes the hypothetical state or outcome of an unreal situation or an idea contrary to fact. In that subjunctive sentence, I pointed out, the verb “be” in the “if”-clause exhibits grammatically deviant behavior by sticking to the past tense “were” regardless of the person and number of the subject. This is why even if the noun “wife” happens to be singular, “be” takes the form of “were” instead of “was” in that subjunctive sentence.
Now, playing the devil’s advocate, let’s imagine what would happen if we used the present tense “are” in the “if”-clause of that sentence: “If you are not my wife, I would say you’re crazy.” We can see that this is neither a subjunctive sentence (which requires the subjunctive “were” in the premise) nor a second conditional sentence (which requires the past-tense “were” in the premise). While the sentence looks grammatically defensible, it is semantically flawed and illogical. Indeed, the speaker making that statement would appear to be blind or suffering from amnesia, or both. He is unable to recognize his very own wife in front of him or, if talking to her over the phone, he can’t even recognize her by her voice.
Subjunctive sentences exhibit two more deviant behaviors of verbs that make them distinct and semantically different from indicative sentences.
The second deviant behavior is that in subjunctive “that” clauses, verbs in the singular third-person don’t follow the subject-verb agreement rule. They drop the “-s” or “-es” at their tail end and take the base form of the verb instead. Thus, it’s incorrect to construct subjunctive sentences this way: “It is essential that she follows the operating procedures.” “The law requires that he terminates all of his private business dealings before assuming public office.” The verb in the “that” clause of both sentences should drop the “-s” or “-es”: “It is essential that she follow the operating procedures.” “The law requires that he terminate all of his private business dealings before assuming public office.”
The third deviant behavior is exhibited by the verb “be” in subjunctive “that” clauses: “be” doesn’t inflect or change form at all no matter what person or number is taken by its subject. It is therefore incorrect to use the present tense or future tense for the verbs in these subjunctive sentences: “The ombudsman recommended that we are suspended for a month.” “We ask that you are present at the inaugurals.” “She ordered that I will be here tomorrow.” Instead, “be” should be used in all of them: “The ombudsman recommended that we be suspended for a month.” “We ask that you be present at the inaugurals.” “She ordered that I be here tomorrow.”
As we can see from the above examples, subjunctive sentences perform several other tasks aside from describing the outcome of an unreal situation or an idea contrary to fact. They also indicate a possibility given a hypothetical situation, express a wishful attitude or desire, demand that a particular action be taken, raise a question about a hypothetical outcome, and express a request or suggestion…
