Subjunctive(?): not critical that

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:09 AM -0700 3/23/08, JAMES A. LANDAU Netscape. Just the Net You
Need. wrote:
>Aside to Laurence Horn:  You give the examples
>
>     She insists that he not take his medicine
>     She insists that he does not take his medicine.
>
>Indeed the difference between the two is in the aspect of the verb.

I don't see this as an aspectual distinction (or maybe you're using
"aspect" in a sense I don't understand), but as one of mood
(subjunctive and indicative respectively, corresponding to what
Searle would describe as "directive" and "representative" occurrences
of "insist".

>  A prescriptivist, however, would render the latter as:
>
>     She insists that he do not take his medicine.
>
Most prescriptivists I know would render the sentences as I have
them.  I assume that no prescriptivist, or anyone else, would use
"She insists that he do not take..." for the indicative, where
"insists" = 'claim fervently' or the like.  And the former ("insists
that he not...") would be the standard subjunctive, where "insists" =
'require'.  Maybe the distinction between

She insists that he not take his medicine.
She insists that he do not take his medicine.

might be aspectual, but when would the latter of these two ever be
used (or prescribed), by prescriptivists or others?  (I note that the
former of these constructions is still alive and well, as a google of
"insist that he not" indicates--even if many of the 1.79 million hits
actually involve the irrelevant "insist that's not"--while "insist
that he do not" has exactly one hit, from a 1920 law digest.)

LH

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