Why subjunctive?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/12/2010 03:09 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>Rather, the meaning is more like
>"If ever there was/were a place in need of more comedy and less
>comity (than it actually has), the Senate would be one such place".
>And my assumption, as mentioned earlier, is that the writer is
>presupposing that there such places do exist; or at the very least
>that their non-existence is not presupposed.  (You can't presuppose
>that there's no such place and assert that the Senate is one, and the
>force of the sentence is to assert that the Senate needs more comedy
>etc.)

So -- "If ever there were*places* ... the Senate would be one such
place" ... and one wouldn't be able to distinguish whether or not the
subjunctive were being used.

Joel

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