The subjunctive (also known as the conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood—a feature of an utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude toward it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality, such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, obligation, or action that has not yet occurred. The precise situations in which they are used vary from language to language. The subjunctive is one of the irrealis moods, which refer to what is not necessarily real. It is often contrasted with the indicative, a realis mood which principally indicates that something is a statement of fact. In Modern English, subjunctive forms usually employ the bare form of the verb in the present subjunctive (with the third person singular lacking the -s ending), or the use of were instead of was in past subjunctive constructions. Subjunctives occur most often, although not exclusively, in subordinate clauses—particularly that-clauses. Examples of the subjunctive in English are found in the sentences "I suggest that you be careful" and "It is important that she stay by your side."
Indo-European languages
Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages) had two closely related moods: the subjunctive and the optative. Many of its daughter languages combined or merged these moods. In Indo-European, the subjunctive was formed by using the full ablaut grade of the verb's root and appending the thematic vowel *-e- or *-o- to the root stem, with the full, primary set of personal inflections. The subjunctive was the Indo-European irrealis, used for hypothetical or counterfactual situations. The optative mood was used to express wishes or hopes, and was formed with a suffix *-ieh1 or *-ih1 (with a laryngeal). The optative used the clitic set of secondary personal inflections. Among the Indo-European languages, only Albanian, Avestan, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit kept the subjunctive and the optative fully separate and parallel. However, in Sanskrit, use of the subjunctive is found only in the Vedic language of the earliest times, and the optative and imperative were comparatively less common. In the later language (from c. 500 BC), the subjunctive fell out of use. The optative or imperative were used instead, or subjunctive was merged with optative as in Latin. However, the first-person forms of the subjunctive continue to be used as they are transferred to the imperative, which formerly, like Greek, had no first person forms.
Germanic languages In the Germanic languages, subjunctives are also usually formed from old optatives (a mood that indicates a wish or hope), with the present subjunctive marked with *-ai- and the past with *-ī-. In German, these forms have been reduced to a schwa, spelled -e. The past tense, however, often displays i-umlaut. In Old Norse, both suffixes evolved into -i-, but i-umlaut occurs only in the past subjunctive.
English
In Modern English, the subjunctive is realised as a finite but tenseless clause where the main verb occurs in the bare form. Since the bare form is also used in a variety of other constructions, the English subjunctive is reflected by a clause type rather than a distinct inflection.
German
German has:
Konjunktiv Präsens, which is a Konjunktiv I, e.g. "er gehe" Konjunktiv Imperfekt (or Präteritum), which is a Konjunktiv II, e.g. "er ginge" Konjunktiv Perfekt, which is a Konjunktiv I too, e.g. "er sei gegangen" Konjunktiv Plusquamperfekt, which is a Konjunktiv II too, e.g. "er wäre gegangen" If the Konjunktiv II of the Futur I (e.g. "ich würde gehen") and of the Futur II (e.g. "ich würde gegangen sein") are called "conditional", the numbers (I, II) can be dropped.
Konjunktiv I The present subjunctive occurs in certain expressions (e.g. Es lebe der König! 'Long live the king!') and in indirect (reported) speech. Its use can frequently be replaced by the indicative mood. For example, Er sagte, er sei Arzt ('He said he was a physician') is a neutral representation of what was said and makes no claim as to whether the speaker thinks the reported statement is true or not. The past subjunctive can often be used to express the same sentiments: Er sagte, er wäre Arzt. Or, for example, instead of the formal, written Er sagte, er habe keine Zeit 'He said he had no time' with present subjunctive habe, one can use past subjunctive hätte: Er sagte, er hätte keine Zeit. However, in speech, the past subjunctive is common without any implication of doubt by the speaker. Use of the indicative Er sagte, er ist Arzt and Er sagte, er hat keine Zeit is also common. This is often changed in written reports to the forms using present subjunctive. The present subjunctive is regular for all verbs except the verb sein ('to be'). It is formed by adding -e, -est, -e, -en, -et, -en to the stem of the infinitive. The verb sein has the stem sei- for the present subjunctive declension, but it has no ending for the first and third person singular. While the use of present subjunctive for reported speech is formal and common in newspaper articles, its use in colloquial speech is in decline. It is possible to express the subjunctive in various tenses, including the perfect (er sei da gewesen 'he has [apparently] been there') and the future (er werde da sein 'he will be there'). For the preterite, which forms the Konjunktiv II with a somewhat different meaning, indirect speech must switch to the perfect tense, so that: Er sagte: "Ich war da." becomes Er sagte, er sei da gewesen.
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