The essay
below is the last of a trilogy of essays that I wrote based on a well-meaning,
constructive letter sent to me by a staffer of the Philippine Supreme Court who
asked if he could consult me once in a while when he’s in doubt about his work.
He said that part of his job is to proofread court decisions and resolutions
drafted by a ponente or the
designated writer from among the justices.
The
letter-writer—I will keep him nameless for obvious reasons—told me he’s neither
a lawyer nor an English major, so his proofreading is confined to just typos
and grammar. “I used to be very strict,” he said. “I’d correct ‘back wages’ or
‘in so far’ into one word, and put a comma or period where I think it’s needed.
This is because my idea of proofreading is that it’s for publication purposes;
when the document gets printed, you can no longer correct it.” He then shared with
me very instructive proofreading predicaments that constrained him from doing
his correcting job thoroughly.
In my third
essay below that I wrote for my English-usage column in The Manila Times, I answer this devilishly equivocal grammar question that the letter-writer
posed at the end of his litany of woes over grammar “wormholes” in Supreme
Court rulings: “What should the verb be in this sentence: ‘He insisted that she
(stay, stays or stayed) in the
house’?” (April 26, 2015)
A
devilishly equivocal English grammar question
Last week, towards the end of my essay about wormholes in certain
Supreme Court rulings and correspondence, I said that the unnamed letter-writer
who brought them to my attention asked this devilishly equivocal grammar
question: “What should the verb be in this sentence: ‘He insisted that she (stay, stays or stayed) in the
house’?”
I replied that the answer could be the subjunctive “stay,” the
indicative present-tense “stays,” or the indicative past-tense “stayed.” Since the explanation would involve some
grammatical complexities, however, I decided to devote a separate column to it.
Let me start by rearranging the answer choices for that sentence:
“He insisted that she (stays or stayed, stay) in the house.” This will
allow us to discuss the more familiar grammar concepts first and work our way
to the more complicated ones.
Recall now that there are three moods of verbs in English,
mood being that aspect of the verb that expresses the speaker’s state of mind
or attitude toward what he or she is saying. These moods are the indicative,
the imperative, and the subjunctive. The indicative and
imperative both deal with actions or states in factual or real-world
situations; in contrast, the subjunctive deals with actions or states as
possible, contingent, or conditional outcomes of a want, wish, preference, or
uncertainty expressed by the speaker.
The most common and familiar of the
three moods is, as we know, the indicative. It conveys the idea that an act or
condition is (1) an objective fact, (2) an opinion, or (3) the subject of a
question. Indicative statements seek to give the impression that the speaker is
talking about real-world situations in a straightforward, truthful manner;
their operative verbs take their normal inflections in all the tenses and they
follow the subject-verb agreement rule religiously.
Now let’s closely examine the
sentence in question when it uses the first answer choice: “He insisted that she stays in
the house.” This sentence is perfectly grammatical when it is said or
understood as an indicative statement, where the speaker declares in a
persistent but straightforward and truthful manner what he believes is an
objective fact: that the female referred to currently stays—that’s the verb “stay” taking its normal present-tense
inflection—in that particular house.
That sentence is also perfectly
grammatical when said or understood as an indicative statement when the verb in
the “that”-clause is in the past tense: “He insisted that she stayed in the house.” Here, the speaker
declares in a persistent but straightforward and truthful manner what he
believes is an objective fact: that the female being referred to stayed for sometime—that’s the verb
“stay” taking its normal past-tense inflection—in that particular house.
Finally, let’s closely examine the
sentence in question when it uses the third answer choice: “He insisted that she stay in
the house.” There’s now an apparent subject-verb disagreement in the
“that”-clause between the singular “she” and the plural-form “stay.” However,
if that sentence is said or understood to be subjunctive, it would be
grammatically and semantically correct. Indeed, one of the uses of the subjunctive
is to denote a speaker’s insistence that a particular action be taken, not that
it’s true or factual.
So then, always keep in mind this rule for subjunctive sentences
with a “demand,” “require,” or “insist” main clause followed by a “that”-clause
indicating the action to be taken: the operative verb of that clause always takes
the subjunctive plural present tense (without the suffix “-s”) whether the doer
of the action is singular or plural: “I demand
that all of you leave right now.”
“The company requires that all job
applicants take an IQ test.” And, in
the same token, “He insisted that she stay in the house.”
I trust
that I have adequately clarified this particular form of the subjunctive.