The subjunctive mood in Philippine English
-
Peter Collins
Abstract
American English has been observed to be leading the way in the revival of the (mandative) subjunctive, leaving behind British English and its postcolonial “children”. Drawing on data from two sets of corpora, sampled in the 1960s and the 1990s, this paper examines the extent to which Philippine English, a distinctively American-rooted variety, has been following American patterns in its use of the subjunctive (both the mandative and the hypothetical were-subjunctive). Some of the findings reflect the historical exonormative dependence of Philippine English on its American “parent” (notably, its continuing preference for the subjunctive over should-periphrasis, and its dispreference for the indicative, in mandative constructions), while others reflect its evolutionary progression towards endonormative stability (for example its disregard for American maintenance of the traditional formality connotations of the mandative subjunctive, and for the American preference for subjunctive were over indicative was in subordinate counterfactual clauses).
Abstract
American English has been observed to be leading the way in the revival of the (mandative) subjunctive, leaving behind British English and its postcolonial “children”. Drawing on data from two sets of corpora, sampled in the 1960s and the 1990s, this paper examines the extent to which Philippine English, a distinctively American-rooted variety, has been following American patterns in its use of the subjunctive (both the mandative and the hypothetical were-subjunctive). Some of the findings reflect the historical exonormative dependence of Philippine English on its American “parent” (notably, its continuing preference for the subjunctive over should-periphrasis, and its dispreference for the indicative, in mandative constructions), while others reflect its evolutionary progression towards endonormative stability (for example its disregard for American maintenance of the traditional formality connotations of the mandative subjunctive, and for the American preference for subjunctive were over indicative was in subordinate counterfactual clauses).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- At the crossroads of language change, variation, and contact 1
-
PART I: Language change
- Knitting and splitting information 11
- The order of adverbials of time and place in Old English 39
- The demise of a preterite-present verb 61
- Gradience in an abrupt change 83
- Vowels before /r/ in the history of English 95
-
PART II: Language variation
- “Pained the eye and stunned the ear” 113
- Watching as -clauses in Late Modern English 137
- Colloquialization and “decolloquialization” 163
- Letters of Artisans and the Labouring Poor (England, c . 1750–1835) 187
- New-dialect formation in medieval Ireland 213
- Tracing uses of will and would in Late Modern British and Irish English 239
-
PART III: Variation and change in contact situations
- The subjunctive mood in Philippine English 259
- Revisiting a millennium of migrations 281
- <U> or <o>: A dilemma of the Middle English scribal practice 305
- Index 325
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- At the crossroads of language change, variation, and contact 1
-
PART I: Language change
- Knitting and splitting information 11
- The order of adverbials of time and place in Old English 39
- The demise of a preterite-present verb 61
- Gradience in an abrupt change 83
- Vowels before /r/ in the history of English 95
-
PART II: Language variation
- “Pained the eye and stunned the ear” 113
- Watching as -clauses in Late Modern English 137
- Colloquialization and “decolloquialization” 163
- Letters of Artisans and the Labouring Poor (England, c . 1750–1835) 187
- New-dialect formation in medieval Ireland 213
- Tracing uses of will and would in Late Modern British and Irish English 239
-
PART III: Variation and change in contact situations
- The subjunctive mood in Philippine English 259
- Revisiting a millennium of migrations 281
- <U> or <o>: A dilemma of the Middle English scribal practice 305
- Index 325
