[Corpora-List] Subjunctive mood detection

[gillian francis]

I agree that it might be best to concentrate on certain verbs with the
pappern 'V (that)', eg 'order' (the president ordered that the conference be
suspended),  'suggest' (I suggested we stop for an early lunch'),
'advocate', 'recommend', 'beg', 'command', 'demand', 'insist', 'propose',
'recommend', 'request'. (Examples from Cobuild Grammar Patterns 1: Verbs). 
 
Initially you could search on 'suggest|suggested that' , 'recommend(lemma)
that... etc etc and then try to get some of those where 'that' is omitted eg
'suggest + they|she...'  etc.
 
Another good environment is 'lest' - eg 'He was put in a cell with no
clothes on lest he injure himself' (From Cobuild English Grammar). I have
looked this up on ukWaC and it yields lots of examples, eg ...lest another
backlash occur, Lest anyone miss the implications... 
 
Many of them rather archaic as you'd expect, eg ...we fear lest any man see
us (Bede??) and from religious sources eg Kiss the Son, lest he be angry'.
and Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 
 
The fact that the subject of the subjunctive verb (or however you'd describe
it) here is often 'any' or 'anyone' is consistent with the hypotheticality,
conditionality etc of the meaning of the subjunctive in English, or what is
left of it. I guess there are lots of definitions as well as the one
exemplified above.
 
And then there are phrases where the 'subjunctive' is fixed - 'if I were
you', 'if need be'  - can't think of others off hand. 
 
You could also search on sentence initial 'Were + I, he, she...'  eg Were he
alive today what would Sir George think? (ukWaC). 
 
I don't think it would be useful to search on modals, because the
subjunctive in its central definition is often used instead of a modal -
there are lines for both 'lest anyone forget' and 'lest anyone should
forget' in ukWaC. Well, this assumes that the first of these is an example
of the subjunctive and the second is not, of course.
 
I hope this helps - I think there's a terminological can of worms here,
probably... But the main thing I think would be to search on the verbs like
'suggest' and 'insist' followed by 'that' clauses, for central and typical
examples. I.e you use a collocational approach by looking at lexical items
which attract the subjunctive. Or maybe this is colligation - I'd say that
the association of 'lest' with the subjunctive would be described as
colligation by eg Susan Hunston, though I don't want to take her name in
vain - lest she tell me I am but an ignorant fool... 
 
Gill Francis

  _____  

From: corpora-bounces at uib.no [mailto:corpora-bounces at uib.no] On Behalf Of
Taras Zagibalov
Sent: 01 July 2010 12:49
To: corpora at uib.no
Subject: [Corpora-List] Subjunctive mood detection


Hello,

I am looking for any papers regarding Subjunctive mood detection. 
Is there any way to find phrases describing unreal but desirable situations
(like "I wish you were here")? The problem is that it's not possible to do
with key words (e.g. word "wish" might be used in "I wish good luck to you"
which is not what I am looking for). Modal verbs are not good indicators
either as they describe probability / possibility of something rather than
what is absent but desirable: "I may/might/can go" vs "I wish I went" or "I
wish I could go". It looks like some grammar / patterns may be more reliable
than key-words.
Any suggestions and ideas are appreciated.

Best regards,
Taras Zagibalov

University of Sussex

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