The History of the Present English Subjunctive: A Corpus-based Study of Mood and Modality

• Uses descriptive data from parallel corpora of three historical periods
• Employs both synchronic and diachronic analyses to evaluate quantitative and qualitative data
• Illustrates results using authentic examples, accompanied by modern English translations
• Includes new insights into the fields of historical English linguistics and corpus linguistics

Locating the subjunctive at the interface of mood and modality, this book presents a systematic description of the use of the English subjunctive in main clauses, noun clauses, relative clauses, and adverbial clauses. It explores the factors which governed its competition with other verbal expressions in texts ranging from the 9th to the beginning of the 18th century. Employing close reading alongside analysis of corpus data and the use of descriptive statistics, it offers new insights into the research landscape of English subjunctive use and into the fields of historical English linguistics and corpus linguistics.