and speaking of English "subjunctives"...

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Nov 9 04:56:20 UTC 2013


On Nov 8, 2013, at 11:12 PM, hw gray wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 7:29 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>
>> as if what he were doing matters
>
>
> "..._moves_ ... as if what he _is_ doing matters"
>
>
OK on the "is", but for me "mattered" is natural in the counterfactual ("as if") context.  What's entirely unnatural, we can perhaps agree, is the reviewer's "were".

LH

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