Semantics of the English Subjunctive by Francis James (review)

142 LETTERS IN CANADA 1986 proceed in the classroom. This width of interest - any English teacher accords with one of the purposes of the volume's originating conference: 'to involve English teachers at all levels - elementary, secondary and university teachers uniting to affirm our interdependence.' The collection is also unified, however, by a polemical theme that interferes with such welcome affiliations among English teachers and discourages their enterprise. Not quite thoroughly but persistently, the volume resists most recent developments in literary theory. Abrams's direct contribution to this theme is, ironically, the least embarrassing; more disappointing is the extent to which newish ideas are otherwise ignored or recognized only by cantankerous passing dismissals. More than Demers's Introduction acknowledges, The Creating Word takes its cue from the source of its title - the conclusion of the Dunciad - and assumes that 'to celebrate the capacity of the word to illumine and liberate, engage and transcend, unburden and connect' (p 1) entails the rejection of many modern understandings and uses of words as ipso facto uncreating. Barzun goes so far as to allow his approval of 'plain and decent, simple and direct' language, of a normative 'common tongue: to compound itself with antipathy to linguistic play. He even rebukes modern writers' 'riotous excess' (he names Apollinaire, Hemingway, Faulkner , Woolf, and Joyce as linguistic saboteurs). But Dullness is in the eye. Some English-teaching readers will welcome the volume's conservative or 'traditional humanistic' (Abrams, p 62) doctrine. Some others will reject it, in the process perhaps throwing out recyclable bathwater. Very many others, however, will intermediately regret that The Creating Word does not more extensively and openly deal with recent developments in studies of language and literature. The collection too little helps lively-minded English teachers pursue the interests they have increasingly taken in such developments. Despite its usefulness and the currency of a few essays, not many readers will find that The Creating Word accurately represents what 'English' in the 1980s has been, is, will be, or should be. (C.A. SILBER) Francis James. Semantics ofthe English Subjunctive University of British Columbia Press. viii, 168. $15.00 This book is a reworking of the author's 1980 Berkeley dissertation, Unified Theory ofthe English Subjunctive, and its publication was supported by a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities. It is an attempt at a diachronic explanation for the current state of the English subjunctive. My criticisms are quite various. One of the greater difficulties with this book is the counter-intuitive use of terminology. The author's argument rests, for the most part, on a HUMANITIES 143 distinction between what he terms 'practical' and 'theoretical' modalities. 'Practical' has to do with the 'world-to-match-words modality: and 'theoretical' with the 'words-to-match-world modality' (p ii). Consider the following two quotations from facing pages to see how confusing the matter can be. [May) also develops its theoretical sense, 'eventuality', 'contingency', 'theoretical possibility', a sense which is usually implied by 'physical ability: 'opportunity : and 'permission'. (P 92) The auxiliary may is appropriate in this use because its early meanings, 'ability' or 'opportunity'I are practical and so capable of reinforcing the subjunctive . (P 93) This lack of consistency in terminology means that the reader must start at the very beginning of the book; otherwise, he runs an even greater risk of not being able to follow the author's line of reasoning. In the well-known Transformational-Generative tradition, the author refers to traditional grammarians and prescriptivists using phrases such as 'Some prescriptive grammarians' (p 56) and 'Prescriptive grammarians sometimes' (p 60), which indicate an acknowledgment of a lack of homogeneity. However, since he fails to provide specific citations, the reader is left in the dark about the actual state of affairs. Even though the author purports to give a historical perspective to subjunctive usage and meaning, he seems to be doing his best to confuse the reader. He fails to distinguish between current and past usage by means of tense: for example, 'Although the past subjunctive has no remaining uses in independent clauses, in earlier English it does have one important use.' It would have been a simple matter...