Subjunctive mastery and archaic forms

At C1 you handled if I were, I wish I were, and a handful of demand that he be constructions. At C2 the subjunctive becomes a coherent system you read as one phenomenon with three live branches — mandative, hypothetical, formulaic — and a fossilized fourth branch of archaic survivals that still surface in prose, ceremony, and idiom.

American English is the right laboratory for studying the subjunctive because it preserves more of the system than British English does. Where a BrE writer reaches for should (The committee insists that he should resign), an AmE writer typically leaves the bare subjunctive intact (The committee insists that he resign). That bareness is not folksiness — it is the older form, the one Shakespeare and the King James Bible used, the one American legal and academic prose still uses by default.

For the Russian-speaking C2 reader, the difficulty is not recognition (you have seen be that as it may a thousand times) but active production: choosing the mandative subjunctive in the moments when a fluent American would, recognizing when a formulaic subjunctive is alive enough to deploy and when it is dead enough to misfire.

The three live branches and the fossil layer

The mandative is the most consequential branch for writing because it surfaces in everyday formal prose: contracts, court opinions, news reports of resolutions, university policy. The hypothetical is the one most students already control. The formulaic and archaic give your prose its idiomatic texture.

Mandative subjunctive — the AmE workhorse

Mandative subjunctive uses the bare infinitive (be, go, do, resign, not be) in a that-clause after a triggering verb, noun, or adjective of demand, suggestion, requirement, or recommendation.

Triggers

Verbs: demand, insist, require, request, recommend, suggest, propose, urge, advise, ask, beg, command, decree, dictate, mandate, move (parliamentary), order, prefer, stipulate.

Adjectives (in it is X that… constructions): essential, crucial, imperative, important, necessary, vital, mandatory, advisable, desirable, fitting, appropriate, urgent.

Nouns: demand, insistence, requirement, request, recommendation, suggestion, proposal, order, motion.

Examples

• The judge ordered that the witness be sequestered.
• The board recommends that the company adopt the new policy.
• It is essential that he understand the gravity of the decision.
• Their demand that the contract be renegotiated was rejected.
• I move that the chair recognize the senator from Vermont. (parliamentary)
• It is imperative that nothing be said until the embargo lifts.

Note the bare form regardless of subject: that he be, that she go, that the company adopt, that nothing be said. There is no -s on third-person singular and no is/are/was.

Negation

To negate, place not directly before the bare infinitive — no auxiliary:

• The court ordered that the records not be released. (not: that the records aren’t released)
• We require that you not discuss the case publicly.
• It is essential that the project not exceed budget.

Passive

The passive is unremarkable — be is still bare:

• We insist that the letter be sent by courier.
• It is recommended that the suspect be detained pending arraignment.

Past — does the subjunctive shift?

No. Mandative subjunctive does not back-shift in reported speech:

• Direct: We demand that he resign.
• Reported: They demanded that he resign. (not: resigned)
• Direct: The court ordered that nothing be said.
• Reported: The court had ordered that nothing be said. (not: was said)

This is one of the cleanest tests of whether you are looking at a true subjunctive: the verb does not move in sequence-of-tense.

Hypothetical subjunctive — beyond if I were

You already use if I were and I wish I were. At C2, broaden the radius.

As if and as though

• She speaks as if she were running for office.
• He looked at me as though I had betrayed him. (past unreal — pluperfect)
• The room felt as if it had been waiting for me.

In casual AmE you will hear as if she was — common and accepted in conversation, but in writing the were form remains the C2-register choice.

Suppose, supposing, what if

• Suppose he were to refuse — what then?
• Supposing she were here — would you say it to her face?
• What if the offer were withdrawn tomorrow?

These slide easily into archaic register; in fully colloquial speech was replaces were.

Would rather, sooner, had better

After would rather and would sooner, the past subjunctive marks present/future unreal preference:

• I’d rather you didn’t smoke in here.
• She’d sooner he resigned quietly than make a scene.
• I’d rather I were in Vermont right now.

Formulaic subjunctive — the idiom layer

These are not productive patterns; they are fossils kept alive by frequent use. Treat them as set phrases.

• Be that as it may, the deadline stands. (= “Granting all that, still…”)
• Come what may, I’m telling her tonight. (= “Whatever happens…”)
• Suffice it to say, the meeting did not go well. (= “It is enough to say…”)
• God forbid anything should happen to her. (= mild oath)
• Heaven help us if he wins.
• Long live the queen.
• God save the United States and this honorable court. (US courtroom opening formula)
• So be it. (resignation)
• Far be it from me to interfere, but…
• Be that as it may, the law is clear.
• Cost what it may, we will defend this.

These are all subjunctive — bare verb forms in inverted or fronted positions — but native speakers feel them as units, not as productive grammar. Use them sparingly; one or two per essay reads as voice, half a dozen reads as parody.

Archaic subjunctive — the fossil layer

These survive in literary prose, hymns, oaths, legal documents, and intentionally elevated speech.

Would that… (= I wish that…)

• Would that I were elsewhere.
• Would that the truth were that simple.
• Would that he had listened to her.

Strongly literary; appears in Shakespeare, in the King James Bible, in high-19th-century Hawthorne/Melville-era US prose, and in 20th-century writers reaching for solemnity. In a contemporary essay, deploy once if at all, knowingly.

Lest… (= for fear that, so that not)

• *They covered the manuscript lest it be damaged by the light.
• *He spoke softly, lest he wake the child.
• *I write this down lest I forget.

Lest is still alive in formal AmE writing — court opinions, op-eds, literary criticism — and triggers the bare subjunctive (or, less commonly, should: lest he should wake).

If need be

• We can file an emergency motion if need be. (= if necessary)

Productive in formal English; a fixed phrase rather than a live pattern.

Perish the thought

• Should the talks collapse — perish the thought — we have a contingency plan.

A polite or ironic interjection rejecting a possibility just floated.

Perception checks — when is should-equivalence in play?

BrE often replaces the mandative subjunctive with should: The committee recommends that he should resign. AmE leaves it bare: The committee recommends that he resign. Both are grammatical; both mean the same thing. The C2 reader should be able to identify which register and which variety they are reading.

AmE notes

• AmE keeps the bare subjunctive. The Chicago Manual of Style and most US law schools default to that he resign. Should insertion sounds British or hyper-cautious to American ears.
• Indicative under mandative triggers is not standard AmE. We require that he resigns — a BrE colloquialism — sounds substandard in AmE writing. Native AmE writers feel the -s as wrong here.
• Formulaic subjunctives are alive in AmE legal and political prose: God save the United States and this honorable court opens every US Supreme Court session; come what may and be that as it may appear in editorials.
• Hypothetical were is preserved in formal AmE writing even though was is common in speech. If I were you is universal across registers; if she were here drifts to if she was here in casual conversation, but the were form remains the literate, journalistic, professional default.

Literary and archaic notes

Mark Twain and Henry James both used would that and lest freely; Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy use them sparingly but pointedly. Lincoln’s Second Inaugural famously deploys the let us hortative (let us strive on to finish the work we are in) — a hortative-exhortative construction with let us + bare infinitive, distinct from the bare subjunctive proper but functionally adjacent in ceremonial register. The hortative let us is largely confined to set phrases (let us pray, let it be known, let the record show) and survives mostly in oratory and ceremony.

Common Russian-speaker mistakes

1. Inflecting the mandative: The board recommends that he resigns → The board recommends that he resign. Russian has no equivalent of the bare subjunctive after verbs of suggestion, so the indicative -s slips back in. Drill: after recommend, suggest, insist, require, demand, propose, order, the that-clause verb takes the bare form regardless of subject.
2. Using BrE should by default in AmE writing: It is essential that he should attend → It is essential that he attend. Both are grammatical; the bare form is the AmE register choice.
3. Back-shifting mandative in reported speech: They demanded that he resigned → They demanded that he resign. The subjunctive does not move in sequence-of-tense.
4. Indicative under as if / as though in formal writing: She talks as if she was the boss → in C2 writing, She talks as if she were the boss. Speech tolerates was; polished prose keeps were.
5. Calquing the Russian чтобы into a that-clause with the wrong verb form: чтобы он пришёл → that he came → corrected to that he come (mandative bare). Russian чтобы + past tense maps to English subjunctive bare infinitive after triggering verb, not English past tense.
6. Forgetting that lest triggers the subjunctive: I left early lest I was late → I left early lest I be late. Lest is one of the few alive triggers of the archaic subjunctive in formal AmE.
7. Using would have been where unreal past hypothetical needs had been: If I would have known (a common AmE colloquialism that purists reject) → If I had known. Speech tolerates would have; C2 writing keeps the pluperfect subjunctive.

Summary

• Three live branches: mandative (bare verb after demand/recommend/insist + that), hypothetical (were-subjunctive after if/as if/wish/suppose), formulaic (set phrases).
• A fossil layer: would that, lest, perish the thought, if need be — alive in formal AmE.
• AmE preserves the bare subjunctive where BrE substitutes should: that he resign (AmE) vs that he should resign (BrE).
• Mandative does not back-shift in reported speech.
• Were-subjunctive remains the C2 written norm under if, as if, as though, suppose, wish, would rather.
• One or two formulaic subjunctives per piece read as voice; more reads as pastiche.

Next lesson: Inversion mastery — all patterns — the full inventory of English inversion, including locative and exclamatory rare forms.