verb tense subjunctive ?

[Anonymous]

I am trying to remember what, and how, some of the verb tenses work
first, what makes it a conditional tense
next please explain the subjunctive both present and past tense.
wayne

[Pete]

>I am trying to remember what, and how, some of the verb tenses work
first, what makes it a conditional tense

-- I think it is best not to consider "conditional" as one of the tenses. There are sentence patterns that are common in English that are called conditional. They make use of different tenses and different modal auxiliary verbs. A common form, for instance, is:
- If I studied more, I would get better grades.
Sometimes you hear a form like "would get" called a conditional tense, but it seems better to me just to think of it as a verb with a modal auxiliary.

>next please explain the subjunctive both present and past tense.

-- There are certain places where verbs in English are used with different forms (subjunctive) than the usual indicative. I don't think you really associate tense with subjunctives, or at least the tense does not indicate time with them.

I can't give a complete rundown of their uses. Here are some. Here, all refer to present time, whether or not the tense appears present or not.

- If I WERE rich, I would travel more.

(From a nursery tale): - BE he alive or BE he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread.

- I insist that he SEE a doctor immediately.

See more about subjunctive at:
> http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/verbs.htm#mood