USAF Culture and Cohesion: Building an Air and Space Force for the 21st Century

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875 edition. Excerpt: ...in the subjunctive, not from any real inconsistency, but because possibilities, volitions, expectations, duties, are often much more positive than the particular actions to which they relate. It requires consideration therefore whether the writer means to speak of the act only, or of the power, &c., itself, as a supposition or thought; e.g. potest solvers s1 vslit, implies that a man has the money, but does not choose to pay; posslt solvere sl velit, that he could get the money to pay with if he chose. 4. It ofien appears probable that the choice of the subjunctive 1595 mood is due rather to a desire to avoid using the indicative, and vice '1/ersa, than to the independent strength of its claim. This occurs chiefly where certain particles or phrases or even tenses are so frequently used with the indicative or subjunctive, that the writer fears if he use the habitual mood he should be supposed to intend the habitual meaning. Of course this consideration can come into play only where neither the indicative nor subjunctive is, independently considered, incompatible with the meaning. ii. Of the Tenses. ' The tenses of the subjunctive mood preserve in the main the same character as the tenses called by the same names in the indicative mood, the present and imperfect denoting contemporaneous states or incomplete acts, the perfect and pluperfect denoting completed acts or states; and again, the present and perfect referring in the main to the time of speaking, the imperfect and pluperfect to some past time spoken of. But there are some special ambiguities, chiefly due to the future tenses of the indicative not having any separate correspondent forms in the subjunctive mood. Thus (1) the present subjunctive corresponds in most cases to...