# insisted I try [simple past + subjunctive (reported speech)]



## Macunaíma

_"Once the interview was over, *he insisted I try* some whale myself. (...) _
_I chewed the raw whale. It was not great, but it was not awful either."_

This is a passage from a report by a BBC foreign correspondent on the whaling industry in Japan, in which he talks about how he first tried whale meat after interviewing a restaurant owner.

This is a case of reported speech where the tense agreement confuses me a little bit: insisted (simple past) + try (present subjunctive).

This tense combination wouldn't have confused me if the reporter hadn't actually tried the whale meat. Then it would have remained an 'open' suggestion: "He insisted I try some whale myself _one day _(which I haven't done yet)".

I did a Google search on this and, much to my surprise, I found out that "he insisted I tried" is not so common (28 hits only).

My question is whether the subjunctive in this construction (and others with verbs like suggest, demand, etc.) is always invariable, even in reported speech? How many of you would be OK with "he insisted I tried" in that sentence?

_Macunaíma_


----------



## Franzi

"He insisted I tried" means that he insisted that it was true that I had already tried something.  "He insisted I try" means he forced me to try something.


----------



## JamesM

I agree with Franzi.   I don't believe the subjunctive changes in any condition.

She insists (that) she go with me.
She has/had insisted (that) she go with me.
She insisted (that) she go with me.
She was insisting (that) she go with me.
She will insist (that) she go with me.
She might insist (that) she go with me.
She would insist (that) she go with me.

I believe it's invariable.


----------



## Macunaíma

Franzi said:


> "He insisted I tried" means that he insisted that it was true that I had already tried something. "He insisted I try" means he forced me to try something.


 
But that's not the sense in which the verb _insist_ is used in that sentence, Franzi. In the report I quoted it means _request with insistence_, not _claim_.


----------



## JamesM

I think that was his point, Macunaima.  You asked us what we thought about "He insisted I tried" as a substitute for "he insisted I try."  It changes the meaning, so it is not an acceptable substitute.


----------



## Macunaíma

JamesM said:


> I agree with Franzi. I don't believe the subjunctive changes in any condition.
> 
> She insists (that) she go with me.
> She has/had insisted (that) she go with me.
> She insisted (that) she go with me.
> She was insisting (that) she go with me.
> She will insist (that) she go with me.
> She might insist (that) she go with me.
> She would insist (that) she go with me.
> 
> I believe it's invariable.


 
James, I read other threads on this matter before posting and in one of them there was a terrible confusion caused by mixing the two meanings with which the verb to insist is used in English. 

I insist that here it means request 

It's terribly confusing for me to think of the subjunctive in those structures as invariable. Perhaps because they are so ingrained in me and carry so much meaning in Portuguese, subjunctives in English are a minefield to me. 

If I were to report a past action --he demanded, insisted, etc-- followed by a _present_ subjunctive in Portuguese, that would mean I haven't yet done what I was demanded/ requested to do... 

I'm willing to try any way around that "he insisted I try". Aren't there any supporters for "he insisted I tried"?


----------



## Macunaíma

JamesM said:


> I think that was his point, Macunaima. You asked us what we thought about "He insisted I tried" as a substitute for "he insisted I try." It changes the meaning, so it is not an acceptable substitute.


 
So we kind of sacrifice the tense agreement to save the meaning of _insist_?

Does insist ALWAYS change its meaning when followed by a past-tense verb, no matter the context?


----------



## Loob

There's a BrE/AmE difference here, Macunaíma.

By way of background, it's worth saying that "insist" can have two meanings - (1) demand, require (2) repeatedly state.

In AmE, as I understand it, the indicative after "insist" automatically makes for meaning (2); that's not the case in BrE.

In BrE, "he insisted I tried" could mean "he repeatedly stated that I tried", but it is more likely to mean "he required me to try".

For "he required me to try", BrE also uses the alternative "he insisted I should try"; and we have been re-learning the "present subjunctive" version "he insisted I try" from our American cousins. 

Personally, I would probably have said "he insisted I tried" or "he insisted I should try". The reporter is no doubt younger than I am....

There are previous threads which mention this AmE/BrE difference: I suspect you can find them by putting _insist_ into Dictionary Look-Up, but I'm too full-of-hay-fever-and-sorry-for-myself to check at the moment


----------



## JamesM

Macunaíma said:


> I'm willing to try any way around that "he insisted I try". Aren't there eny supporters for "he insisted I tried"?


 
I wouldn't hold your breath.  

The key to the meaning "insisted" in this particular context is precisely which conjugation is used for "try".  "He insisted I tried" =  He vigorously asserted that I had tried...   "He insisted I try" = He forcefully urged me to try...

I don't think the subjunctive works the same in English as it does in Portuguese.  I know for certain that it doesn't operate the same way as it does in French.  The fact that it is called "subjunctive" does not guarantee parallel behavior.


----------



## Franzi

JamesM said:


> I think that was his point, Macunaima. You asked us what we thought about "He insisted I tried" as a substitute for "he insisted I try." It changes the meaning, so it is not an acceptable substitute.


 
Yes, exactly.  (Her point, by the way.)  In addition, I don't think that "He insisted I try..." counts as reported speech.  "He insisted I tried..." (or more likely, "He insisted I'd tried...") does though.


----------



## Loob

JamesM said:


> I wouldn't hold your breath.


We crossed, James - Macunaíma can breathe easy, as there is at least one supporter here of "tried".

I agree with you, though, that the subjunctive doesn't work in English in the same way as in Portuguese. When I say "he insisted I tried", I'm pretty sure "tried" is past indicative not past subjunctive. My reasoning? If the verb "to be" were involved, I would definitely say "he insisted I was" rather than "he insisted I were".  (I've changed my mind about this indicative/subjunctive issue since I first posted in an "insist" thread...)


----------



## Franzi

Macunaíma said:


> If I were to report a past action --he demanded, insisted, etc-- followed by a _present_ subjunctive in Portuguese, that would mean I haven't yet done what I was demanded/ requested to do...


 
The concept of "past" and "present" subjunctive in English is a bit different.  Here is one quick overview of English subjunctive: http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxsubjun.html

There are plenty of others, and I'm sure there are lots of wordreference threads on the subject.


----------



## Macunaíma

JamesM said:


> I don't think the subjunctive works the same in English as it does in Portuguese.


 
No, it doesn't. It was stupid of me mentoning Portuguese because it really doesn't help --but at least any Portuguese speaker reading this will sympathize with my perplexity.

LOOB, I'm glad "he insisted I tried" makes sense to you. Your suggestion that this might be a BrE/AmE difference accounts for my difficulty in grasping it: I have always studied English from British teachers and British teaching materials, although I'm interested in any variant of English.

Thank you James, Franzi and Loob


----------



## Franzi

Loob said:


> We crossed, James - Macunaíma can breathe easy, as there is at least one supporter here of "tried".


 
Ah, but there are no supporters of "tried" as a past subjunctive in that context, which is what Macunaíma wanted it to be.  The various online grammar guides I consulted agreed with you that BE lost the subjunctive in that context rather than changing from present to past subjunctive.


----------



## Outsider

Macunaíma said:


> _"Once the interview was over, *he insisted I try* some whale myself. (...)
> I chewed the raw whale. It was not great, but it was not awful either."_
> 
> This is a passage from a report by a BBC foreign correspondent on the whaling industry in Japan, in which he talks about how he first tried whale meat after interviewing a restaurant owner.
> 
> This is a case of reported speech where the tense agreement confuses me a little bit: insisted (simple past) + try (present subjunctive).


Tense agreement with the English subjunctive doesn't work like in the Romance languages. In fact, I'd say there's very little tense agreement of the kind you were probably expecting.


----------



## Macunaíma

Franzi said:


> Ah, but there are no supporters of "tried" as a past subjunctive in that context, which is what Macunaíma wanted it to be. The various online grammar guides I consulted agreed with you that BE lost the subjunctive in that context rather than changing from present to past subjunctive.


 
I am to blame for confusing the names. 

But, Franzi, since the verb to insist seems to you to change its meaning from request to repetedly state if followed by a past tense, how would you feel about this one, if the restaurant owner had been less civil:_"He demanded I ate the whale meat"_?


----------



## JamesM

Loob said:


> We crossed, James - Macunaíma can breathe easy, as there is at least one supporter here of "tried".
> 
> I agree with you, though, that the subjunctive doesn't work in English in the same way as in Portuguese. When I say "he insisted I tried", I'm pretty sure "tried" is past indicative not past subjunctive. My reasoning? If the verb "to be" were involved, I would definitely say "he insisted I was" rather than "he insisted I were". (I've changed my mind about this indicative/subjunctive issue since I first posted in an "insist" thread...)


 
Would you say, "I insisted that he left" could mean the same as "I insisted that he leave" (or "I insisted that he should leave")?   I can't imagine "I insisted that he left" could mean "I urgently demanded that he leave."  To me it can only mean "I repeatedly claimed that he (had already) left."

I think Macunaima, that Loob is saying that "He insisted I tried" does _not_ work as the subjunctive here, but I'm honestly confused at this point.


----------



## Outsider

Loob said:


> When I say "he insisted I tried", I'm pretty sure "tried" is past indicative not past subjunctive. My reasoning? If the verb "to be" were involved, I would definitely say "he insisted I was" rather than "he insisted I were".  (I've changed my mind about this indicative/subjunctive issue since I first posted in an "insist" thread...)


Yes, that makes a lot of sense.


----------



## Franzi

Macunaíma said:


> I am to blame for confusing the names.
> 
> But, Franzi, since the verb to insist seems to you to change its meaning from request to repetedly state if followed by a past tense, how would you feel about this one, if the restaurant owner had been less civil:_"He demanded I ate the whale meat"_?


 
"He demanded I ate the whale meat" is completely, 100% ungrammatical for me.  In English, "past" and "present" subjunctives look like the past and present indicative, but they aren't used for things in the past and present.  That link I gave you before lists some of the main uses.

Basically, I would say:

"He demanded/suggested/insisted/requested I eat..."

but

"If I ate the whale meat, what do you think would happen?"


----------



## Macunaíma

JamesM said:


> I think Macunaima, that Loob is saying that "He insisted I tried" does _not_ work as the subjunctive here, but I'm honestly confused at this point.


 
Yes, I got the point.

As for "he insisted that I leave", would you use it like this James (please disregard other mistakes): _"I picked up a quarrel with a guy at the pub last saturday and the publican *insisted I leave* before things got worse"_?


----------



## Loob

Just to jump in again on the BrE front: I'd be quite happy with "he demanded I ate" (past indicative) meaning "he required me to eat".

This is one of the "hidden-but-enormous" differences between AmE and BrE



JamesM said:


> Would you say, "I insisted that he left" could mean the same as "I insisted that he leave" (or "I insisted that he should leave")? I can't imagine "I insisted that he left" could mean "I urgently demanded that he leave."


 
Yes, definitely!


----------



## JamesM

Thanks for clarifying that, Loob.  So there is a significant difference here.


----------



## Macunaíma

Franzi said:


> "He demanded I ate the whale meat" is completely, 100% ungrammatical for me.
> 
> Basically, I would say:
> 
> "He demanded/suggested/insisted/requested I eat..."


 
The thing is: he _*did*_ eat, and it's over now. If you were to say to me "someone demanded I _*eat *_whale meat", I'd think you haven't eaten whale meat yet but the order the person gave you still holds.

I'm not trying to argue with you, of course. I'm just saying that so that you see where my dificulty is...


----------



## Matching Mole

JamesM said:


> Would you say, "I insisted that he left" could mean the same as "I insisted that he leave" (or "I insisted that he should leave")?   I can't imagine "I insisted that he left" could mean "I urgently demanded that he leave."  To me it can only mean "I repeatedly claimed that he (had already) left."


This has come up before, in several threads dealing with the subjunctive, and represents a difference between British and US usage, as Loob has pointed out. It can only mean "I repeatedly claimed that he (had already) left" to you because you speak American English, and in AE it can only mean that (as I understand).

In British English, it can mean both. In this context, it would not suggest your meaning to me: my first thought would be that it was a command (equivalent to the jussive subjunctive) "I insisted that he leave".

The thread that Loob refers to is probably this one: *The children insisted that she read them a story every night*.


----------



## JamesM

Thanks, Matching Mole.  I understand now.


----------



## JamesM

Macunaíma said:


> The thing is: he _*did*_ eat, and it's over now. If you were to say to me "someone demanded I _*eat *_whale meat", I'd think you haven't eaten whale meat yet but the order the person gave you still holds.
> 
> I'm not trying to argue with you, of course. I'm just saying that so that you see where my dificulty is...


 
I guess it is simply a difference between AE and BE. In AE, I can imagine both results following "He demanded I eat":

"He demanded I eat the whale meat. Naturally, I refused. He was furious." (action complete)

"He demanded I eat the whale meat. What could I do? He had me at gunpoint. I ate the whale meat." (action complete)

It could also be used for an incomplete action:

"He demanded that I finish college before getting married, so here I am, enrolled in school and single." (action incomplete)




In AE, "He demanded I eat" is simply the "demand" portion of the event - a demand that happened in the past. Whether the other person acceded to the demand or not must be revealed elsewhere.  Loob and Matching Mole have made it clear that it doesn't operate this way in BE.


----------



## Macunaíma

It's all clear to me now. A BrE/AmE difference that goes so far as to change the meaning of a verb (_insist_) in a sentence, even if the context points in a different direction.

MM, I did read that thread, but I probably missed the points that became quite clear to me here.

Thanks everybody.


----------



## toshev

I'm with the Americans on this one. Australian English generally follows British and I defy any AusE speaker to claim that _he insisted I ate_ can possibly mean the same thing as _he insisted I eat _in AusE, or that _he demanded I ate_ is grammatically meaningful in any context. My world would be turned upside-down to learn I am wrong on this point.


----------



## Jigen

I've read this interesting thread and I've a question,when we report using verbs such as insist,suggest,recommend,order we can use both a present subjunctive or a past subjunctive(?),can't we?
1a)I insisted(that)I(should try).
1b)He insisted I tried .(we are sort of "backshifting" here,right)
----
2a)The guide recommended (that) we(should) take a taxi.
2b)The guided recommended that we took a taxi.


----------



## wandle

Franzi said:


> Ah, but there are no supporters of "tried" as a  past subjunctive in that context, which is what Macunaíma wanted it to  be.  The various online grammar guides I consulted agreed with you that  BE lost the subjunctive in that context rather than changing from  present to past subjunctive.


Well, I will step up here.

If we are thinking about the history of the difference in usage between Britain and the US, my guess would be that English originally had, like German, two subjunctives. One English subjunctive would be present, one past. 
The present subjunctive would be used in a present context (_She insists he eat more cake_) and the past subjunctive in a past context (_She insisted he ate more cake_). 'Insist' here is used in the sense 'demand'.
Perhaps 'ate' would have been in a different form showing the subjunctive mood (or perhaps not).

Then as the two communities became separated, the Americans lost the tense distinction in the subjunctive, while the British preserved it.
Thus US usage has made the present subjunctive do the work of both tenses, while British usage retains the tense distinction, though with no visible mood distinction: we simply understand the mood distinction from the context.


----------



## Jigen

So the 4 statements in comment #29 are all possible,it is all a matter of "style"(AmE or BrE),would you agree with that ,Wadle?

(P.S. I am terribly sorry for having replied to an old discussion but I did not want to open a new thread smilar to this one!)


----------



## wandle

Jigen said:


> it is all a matter of "style"(AmE or BrE)


Not just style.    
Americans may see the British use of the past tense form as smply  erroneous or may miss your meaning.
To avoid misunderstanding, I would recommend using 'should'.


----------



## Jigen

I see,you know some time ago I found in my book an exercise reading "The guided recommended that we took a taxi.",I thought it was incorrect,a misprinting maybe(I still wonder whether it is),for in statements like this I've always used the present subjunctive(with and withoud "should")


----------



## Loob

I don't want to repeat myself, but...

(1) "The guided recommended that we took a taxi." is fine in BrE, Jigen;
(2) "Took" here is - in my vew, though evidently not in wandle's - past indicative, not past subjunctive.


----------



## Jigen

Thank you Loob,but my question was can we use the past indicative insted of the past subjunctives in my examples above?


----------



## Loob

OK, I'll try again.

Looking at your post resuscitating this thread...





Jigen said:


> I've read this interesting thread and I've a question,when we report using verbs such as insist,suggest,recommend,order we can use both a present subjunctive or a past subjunctive(?),can't we?
> 1a)I insisted(that)I(should try).
> 1b)He insisted I tried .(we are sort of "backshifting" here,right)
> ----
> 2a)The guide recommended (that) we(should) take a taxi.
> 2b)The guided recommended that we took a taxi.


... my answer is:

~ _He insisted we tried._ works in BrE
~_ The guide recommended (that) we took a taxi._ works in BrE.
~ Both "tried" and "took" are, in my view but not in wandle's, past indicative.


----------



## Jigen

Thank you, Loob,I must agree with you as in my view here,as I see it,is used to "backshif" the action since we are sort of reporting a suggestion/order


----------



## JamesM

Loob said:


> I don't want to repeat myself, but...
> 
> (1) "The guided recommended that we took a taxi." is fine in BrE, Jigen;
> (2) "Took" here is - in my vew, though evidently not in wandle's - past indicative, not past subjunctive.



It must just be a fundamental difference.  I can't imagine saying "We insisted he told us the story again" to mean we urged him to repeat the story after he told it to us once.  It makes my head go tilt.   The only thing it can mean to me is that we insisted that it was true that he actually did tell us the story again.  We are bearing witness to the fact that he told the story more than once.  The statement is made some time after he told us the story again. 

Compare this with "We insisted he tell us the story again", meaning that we urged him to tell us the story again.  The action is taking place before he told us the story again (assuming we succeeded in wheedling him into telling it again). 

How would you read these in British English?  Can you expand on the interpretation of "We insisted he told" and "We insisted he tell" in British English, or would "We insisted he tell" just not appear at all? And if it doesn't, how do you express the first meaning I listed above?  If it's the same whether bearing witness to it later or urging him at the time, then British English has collapsed two meanings, in my view.


----------



## wandle

JamesM said:


> It must just be a fundamental difference.


That seems to me an overstatement. However, this is a case where we are dealing with a twofold difference: not only in usage of the subjunctive, but also in that of the verb 'insist'. The use of 'insist that' with a clause, to express a demand, is I believe less common in British usage in any event. 

Generally speaking, for demands, expectations etc., we are less likely to use a 'that' clause and much more likely to use a prepositional or infinitive construction, particularly in the negative.  We will also change the verb in order to retain the more usual construction and avoid a subjunctive. 

We do not say, for example, 'I insisted he not smoke'. We say 'I insisted he should not smoke' or 'was not to smoke' or 'I repeatedly told him not to smoke'.

Meaning *4a* under 'insist' in the OED is 


> To make a demand with persistent urgency; to take a persistent or peremptory stand in regard to a stipulation, claim, demand, proposal, etc.
> Const. _on_, _upon_ (formerly _for_, _against_, or _inf_.).



For this, it gives eight examples, including:


> 1896   Law Times 100 408/1   _It is now time to insist on the necessary appointment being made._



Under *4b* the meaning is the same, but the construction is 'with _that_ and clause', for which there are two examples, both with 'should', including:


> 1883   J. A. Froude Short Stud. IV. i. iii. 33   _The king insisted that a sacred profession should not be used as a screen for the protection of felony_.


----------



## wandle

My impression is that the subjunctive was formerly in regular use in English with both a present and a past form. This would be consistent with other languages of the same family. Then there developed a periphrastic subjunctive: that is to say, the use of the modal auxiliary 'shall' or 'should' (expressing obligation, like its German root _sollen_) in conjunction with the base verb.

On that basis, we can construct a probable parallel scheme for the two different types of subjunctive:



*Morphological subjunctive**Periphrastic subjunctive**Present tense*(*a*)_  [that] he go_(*b*)  _[that] he shall go_*Past tense*(*c*)_  [that] he (went)_(*d*)_  [that] he should go_


I put 'went' in brackets to allow for the possibility of a separate form for the past subjunctive.

This results in the following sample parallel sentences:

Present tense: 
  '_I insist that he go_' is equivalent to:  '_I insist that he shall go_'.       

Past tense: 
  '_I insisted that he (went)_' is equivalent to  '_I insisted that he should go_'.

If the above reconstruction is valid, neither American nor British usage has remained consistent.
American usage has dropped the past subjunctive and uses the present form for both tenses, while avoiding the periphrastic forms.

British usage generally avoids the present subjunctive, but retains the past, using the form of the past indicative (this may or may not be different from the original past subjunctive). Alongside that, the past tense of the periphrastic form ('should') has come to be used for both tenses. Other periphrases ('is to', 'was to') are also used in place of the subjunctive.

Thus American usage, for both tenses, typically employs pattern (*a*).
British usage, for the present tense, employs pattern (*d*) or the present indicative form ('_I insist he does it now_') and for the past either (*c*) or (*d*) or other periphrasis.

All this strikes me as characteristic of what I call 'creolisation': that is, the tendency of a language when transplanted to new shores by migration to become simplified by reduction or loss of distinct morphological inflections. 

The migratory and colonising tendency of the Anglo-Saxons means first, that English has suffered this simplifying process repeatedly, secondly, that our language has become the _lingua franca_ of the world and thirdly that foreigners with more complex and more consistent inflected languages are forced to sacrifice their cleaner logic and 'dumb down' in order to learn our cruder, less predictable grammar.


----------



## JamesM

Wandle, this appears to be an assumption on your part.  It's an interesting theory but do you actually see historical usage to match the theory?  What if the subjunctive didn't change when placed in the past and American English has retained British English usage from colonial days?  It wouldn't be the first time that American English was more conservative in usage than British English (i.e., "gotten") and retained older usage patterns.

Also, I don't think you've addressed the issue that "insisted that he go" and "insisted that he went" mean two different things in American English.  One means that I remained implacable on the demand that he go (in the past) and the other means I remained implacable on the fact that he actually had gone.  How are these distinguished in British English?  I suppose it might be "I insisted that he had gone".

A Google Ngram on the British English corpus shows "insisted that he go" as far more popular than "insisted that he went". 

https://books.google.com/ngrams/gra...that he go;,c0;.t1;,insisted that he went;,c0


----------



## Jigen

James they point you've made here is quite interesting,can you better explain the differences between these two usages,please?



Jigen said:


> 1a)I insisted(that)I(should try).
> 1b)He insisted I tried .(we are sort of "backshifting" here,right)
> ----
> 2a)The guide recommended (that) we(should) take a taxi.
> 2b)The guide recommended that we took a taxi.


----------



## JamesM

1a) sounds like the British English version of American English "I insisted that he try".  "I insisted that he should try", in my understanding of American English, means "I remained steadfast on the point that he was socially/ethically obligated to try".  This is different from "I insisted that he try", which means "I remained steadfast in my insistence that he make the effort".  
1b) in American English, to me, means that he had already tried it and you were insisting that this was true.

 2a) similar to 1a, in American English would be "The guide recommended that we take the taxi."
 2b) as I said in earlier posts, this combination doesn't make sense to me because I can't see how he could have recommended something we had already done (see my answer to 1b above).  Imagine saying "The guide recommended that we had taken the taxi."    "...recommended that we took the taxi" has the same effect on me.  It's chronologically nonsensical.


----------



## Jigen

Hmm...  I dont't know whether 2b) is wrong for I've taken this sentence from a completition exercise in my book(the posssibility of a misprinting or an error is not to be excluded anyway...)


----------



## JamesM

I'm only speaking from my American English perspective.  I think there has been more one than British English speaker on the thread who would consider 2b correct.  I am just providing feedback from my variant of English.  I wouldn't assume it was wrong in British English because wandle has said that it is correct in British English (and, looking back, so did Loob).  Is your book from a UK publisher?


----------



## Jigen

I believe so,as it is a book for the preparation for the CPE exam(C2),the publisher is Pearson Longman by the way(I can't tell whether it is British or American).


----------



## wandle

JamesM said:


> What if the subjunctive didn't change when placed in the past


That seems to me less likely, bearing in mind the different subjunctive forms in German and other related languages.





> I don't think you've addressed the issue that "insisted that he go" and "insisted that he went" mean two different things in American English. One means that I remained implacable on the demand that he go (in the past) and the other means I remained implacable on the fact that he actually had gone. How are these distinguished in British English? I suppose it might be "I insisted that he had gone".


I was not ignoring that. Posts 39 and 40 were both showing that British usage, besides 'insisted that he went' also included 'insisted that he should go'. 
With the periphrastic version, which I have always preferred, there is no ambiguity.


wandle said:


> Generally speaking, for demands, expectations etc., we are less likely to use a 'that' clause and much more likely to use a prepositional or infinitive construction, particularly in the negative. We will also change the verb in order to retain the more usual construction and avoid a subjunctive.
> We do not say, for example, 'I insisted he not smoke'. We say 'I insisted he should not smoke' or 'was not to smoke' or 'I repeatedly told him not to smoke'.





JamesM said:


> A Google Ngram on the British English corpus shows "insisted that he go" as far more popular than "insisted that he went".
> https://books.google.com/ngrams/gra...that he go;,c0;.t1;,insisted that he went;,c0


At first sight, that appears to undermine my hypothesis as regards 'went'. However, the picture is not quite so simple.

This ngram shows that up to 1940, the prevalence of 'insisted that he should go' far exceeded that of 'insisted that he go' and 'insisted that he went' singly or combined.
That is no surprise at all and shows clearly the traditional British preference for the periphrastic subjunctive (option (d) in post 40) over the morphological subjunctive (a) or (b). 

Evidently the American usage of 'insisted that he go' has gained ground since then. However, this ngram shows that up to 1985, the combined prevalence of 'insisted that he should go' and 'insisted that he went' still exceeded the prevalence of 'insisted that he go'.  

This looks like another example of the phenomenon noticed in other threads, that American usage has made ground significantly in Britain since the Second World War and particularly in the last quarter of the 20th century. This should be attributed I suppose to the influence of the millions of GIs who spent time over here, of Hollywood and television and of the US catching up with the UK in book production.

However, in the present case, the above comparison is in reality less significant than it might seem, because it misses another key point, mentioned earlier: namely that the use of 'insisted that' to mean 'demanded that' is less common in British usage in any case. In many instances, we would express the idea by saying 'insisted on' followed by a noun or a gerund, or we would use a different verb or construction. This means that the comparison, in order to be valid, requires proper weighting for each of these factors. I do not have the data to quantify such weighting, but I believe the effect of it would be significant.


----------



## JamesM

wandle said:


> That seems to me less likely, bearing in mind the different subjunctive forms in German and other related languages.



But the fact of the matter is, we don't _know._  It's conjecture.  Since we have no evidence either way at this point there isn't much to go on other than assumptions.



> However, in the present case, the above comparison is in reality less significant than it might seem, because it misses another key point, mentioned earlier: namely that the use of 'insisted that' to mean 'demanded that' is less common in British usage in any case.



Then, to test the assertion it might be easier to find examples of "demanded that he went" vs. "demanded that he go".  I don't know about you, but I can find precious few examples of "demanded that he went" and many of them are in sketchy texts.


----------



## wandle

JamesM said:


> But the fact of the matter is, we don't _know._  It's conjecture.  Since we have no evidence either way at this point there isn't much to go on other than assumptions.


I hope I have not overstated the case:


wandle said:


> My impression is
> ...
> a probable parallel scheme
> ...
> If the above reconstruction is valid ...





JamesM said:


> Then, to test the assertion it might be easier to find examples of "demanded that he went" vs. "demanded that he go".  I don't know about you, but I can find precious few examples of "demanded that he went" and many of them are in sketchy texts.


The point that we tend to avoid the construction with a 'that' clause also means we are less likely to say 'demanded that'.


----------



## Loob

JamesM said:


> ...
> A Google Ngram on the British English corpus shows "insisted that he go" as far more popular than "insisted that he went".


If you look at the actual examples, a lot (most?) of them are not actually British English.  Google Ngram does not reliably distinguish between AmE and BrE.


----------



## JamesM

wandle said:


> I do not think I have overstated the case:
> 
> 
> The point that we tend to avoid the construction with a 'that' clause also means we are less likely to say 'demanded that'.



Since we are talking about the subjunctive in the past, what construction_ would _you use that would include "demanded" and "went"?  Your assertion was that "he went" was the past tense subjunctive.  I'm still looking for examples of that.


----------



## JamesM

Loob said:


> If you look at the actual examples, a lot (most?) of them are not actually British English.  Google Ngram does not reliably distinguish between AmE and BrE.



That's good to know.  I thought it did.  Thanks for the information.  I won't be using that dropdown box again.


----------



## wandle

Well I never! What? Google unreliable? What next?


----------



## JamesM

wandle said:


> Well I never! What? Google unreliable? What next?



  So true.


----------



## JamesM

Here is the closest I could find to a summary of the origin of present tense after words such as "insisted":

An Historical Syntax of the English Language, Part 1; Part 3

Referring to "I suggested that he go at once" and "The doctor insisted that he remain in bed"


> This type is characterized by the fact that the introductory forumula is in the preterite and the clause in the present tense in the modally marked form.  One gets the impression that American grammarians look upon this type as having come upon the scene only in very recent times. ... It is, however, a fact that the idiom can be traced back to Old English and that it remained in use in Middle and early Modern English.  ... The revival, in the United States, since the beginning of the twentieth century in the written records seems to show that the idiom must have been preserved in spoken use among the Pilgrim Fathers.



Although I'm stretching the quotation limit here, I'd like to include one of the examples he provides from early Modern English since it is a citation from another work:

Berners, Froissart VI, 36 1523-5


> It was ordained by the French kyng... that no maner of person make any riot or gyve any riotous words to any Englysshman, and also that no knight nor squier speke or make any chalenge of armes to any Englysshman.



The examples make for very interesting browsing, although I can't read the Old English and can barely read some of the Middle English examples. 


If this construction is a recent import from American English it's actually a re-introduction of a construction that was in British English for many centuries.


----------



## wandle

JamesM said:


> what construction_ would _you use that would include "demanded" and "went"?


I am pointing out that we would not be likely to use a construction which combined those words in the suggested way.


> Your assertion was that "he went" was the past tense subjunctive.


No, as indicated in post 49, I was careful not to make it an assertion. 
It was offered in post 40 as a probable hypothesis for reconstructing a past development.


> I'm still looking for examples of that.


As I see it, the following cases are subjunctive:
(a) _'It is time we went home'_. 
Clearly (1) 'went' here has future reference, because it proposes action as from now; (2) it is subjunctive in meaning, because it expresses an intention rather than a fact; and (3) it uses the same form as the past indicative. That seems to me to make it a good candidate.
(b) _'If we went to Paris, we could see the Louvre'_. 
The same analysis applies to 'went' in this case.
(c) The verb 'combined' in my first sentence also uses the same form as the past indicative, but is clearly modal: that is, it is not asserting a fact but expressing a hypothetical idea.

These and similar cases all seem to me to show the subjunctive in use, even though they are indistinguishable in form from the past indicative.
The fact that alongside those cases we also have a clearly distinguishable present subjunctive would suggest that the examples given are either in the original past subjunctive form or else have been assimilated from that to the past indicative form.


----------



## wandle

JamesM said:


> If this construction is a recent import from American English it's actually a re-introduction of a construction that was in British English for many centuries.


That very interesting Historical Syntax suggests that the construction with the present subjunctive following a main verb in the past tense had died out in English usage, but was revived by American writers apparently influenced by early religious texts. It then became standard in US usage. From that I understand that it was never originally in shared use on both sides of the Atlantic, but was a conscious literary revival in the US which caught on and became fashionable there.

That, if correct, invalidates my suggestion as to the time and place of the origin of that construction, but not the hypothesis of two different original subjunctives, present and past, or the proposed tabular scheme of reconstruction in post 40.


----------



## JamesM

No, wandle, what it suggests is that it had died out in written British English usage and had survived in spoken American English and then was re-introduced into writing by American writers who were using language that was more like spoken English at the time. 

Where did you get that it was never originally in shared use on both sides of the Atlantic?  The moment the Pilgrims came to the New World with it the English banned it from the sceptred isle?   Seriously, you're grasping at straws at this point, in my opinion. 

There are examples of it in the 19th Century from U.S. Congressional Records.  It did not die out only to be revived by American writers.  It was an active part of daily language.

I don't know why you gloss over the evidence that it was a regular part of British English for well over a thousand years and survived in American English.  I think it is a deeply ingrained bias in many Englishmen that anything from the U.S. is "newfangled" and not preservation of the language England had at the time we were colonists.  There are too many examples of the latter to deny it, but somehow the denial continues.


----------



## wandle

JamesM said:


> Where did you get that it was never originally in shared use on both sides of the Atlantic?


My mistake. I was rather hasty. I had read on last night in that text and had come upon this statement:


> It seems to have arisen - quite recently, judging from evidence come to light so far - in the United States; it is probably not one of the numerous post-colonial survivals of mother-country usage.


Now, that statement actually belongs to section 871, and refers to the usage with 'not' in front of the verb:


> the adverb _not_ is given an unusual place, viz. before the verb
> ...
> [Example:]_ I wasn't suggesting that you not do it._


I wrote post 57 without checking back and unfortunately conflated the above statement with an inaccurate memory of the comments in section 870 about the usage of the Pilgrim Fathers and the development in writing, with the result that you see.


JamesM said:


> I don't know why you gloss over the evidence that it was a regular part of British English for well over a thousand years and survived in American English.


I would not want to gloss over any evidence. I am very glad to see such a lot in that source. I had indeed noted, to my surprise, that the usage had been present in earlier periods of English.

However, has Visser really shown that there was continuous spoken use in the US from the Pilgrim Fathers to the 20th century?


> The revival, in the United States, since the beginning of the twentieth century in the written records seems to show that the idiom must have been preserved in spoken use among the Pilgrim Fathers.


How does that conclusion follow? Even granted that the usage was in spoken use on both sides of the Atlantic early in the 17th C., it may equally have passed out of spoken use in both places. Two facts seem significant.

(1) When we look at Visser's evidence of the rare written usage in the modern period, it seems to be entirely from British sources until Louisa Alcott in 1868. Since that does not prove continuity of spoken use in Britain, how can it do so in the US?

(2) The revival of the usage in written form in the US is placed by Visser in the 20th C, at the same time as the appearance of the form with 'not' before the verb. Given that the latter was a new development, it may be that there was a common  literary or pedagogical stimulus for both. 


JamesM said:


> I think it is a deeply ingrained bias in many Englishmen that anything from the U.S. is "newfangled" and not preservation of the language England had at the time we were colonists. There are too many examples of the latter to deny it, but somehow the denial continues.


Please do not attribute such thinking to me. Where are those dreadful characters? Not here, surely.
The regulars on this forum I believe all recognise that these questions about language usage depend upon the individual evidence in each case.


----------



## JamesM

> (1) When we look at Visser's evidence of the rare written usage in the modern period, it seems to be entirely from British sources until Louisa Alcott in 1868. Since that does not prove continuity of spoken use in Britain, how can it do so in the US?



* How many books were published in the newly formed United States?
* Can any written record _prove or disprove _the continuity of spoken word?  
 * Visser's list is not exhaustive, only meaning to show examples.  The OED doesn't list every example from a period, only key examples.  That doesn't justify the judgment that the usage was rare in that time.

 Here are some other 19th century citations with subjunctive forms from Google Books:

Journal of the House Of Commons, 1803
Therefore the Sheriff of Middlesex is *commanded,* by the Writ of our said Lord the King, that* he do not *forbear by reason of any Liberty in his Bailiwick, but *that he take *the said John Wilkes...

A Treatise on the Parties to Actions... 1837  (Boston, Mass.)  (this particular citation is from a case in Westminster, England in 1831)
...and the said Chief Baron is [or "Justices of Assize are"] commanded that he [or "they"]* certify *the inquisition to be before him [ or "them"]...

A Series of Sermons and Lectures on Important Subjects, 1830, John Nelson, Primitive Methodist preacher (England)
-- Is it required that *he love *God and all that is good? He *dare* appeal to the eye of Omniscience and say, "Lord thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee." 
-- Is it required that *he have *a proper relish for heavenly felicity?

International Record of Medicine and General Practice Clinics, 1888, New York
He recommended that the societies of other counties *take* steps, as had that of the county of New York, to enforce the law regulating the practice of medicine.

I.O.O.F. History of Odd Fellowship of Maine, 1878
He recommended that the Grand Lodge or Grand Master *employ* a Grand Lecturer, and cause him to visit each Lodge in the State once a year and impart the work to it.
`
Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 6: 1874-1875
....advised complete rest from labors of body or mind for at least a year and recommended that she* go *abroad to recover her strength.

British Journal of Dental Science, Volume 30, 1887
On learning that his trouble commended in about three months after the teeth were made and had continued ever since, it was recommended that *he at once discontinue *the use of the plate, and the advice was followed...

Butler's Book, Benjamin F. Butler, 1892, Boston
I then  _suggested that he _*move *his command forward towards my division and await instructions from General Smith who was in command, and I had no authority to give any instructions.

The Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1896, London
The Committee had approved of Dr. Voelcker's proposals, and they recommended that he *be* authorised/ to arrange for the requisite supply of the gas-lime.  

The Cosmopolitan, Volume 20, 1896, New York
They also thought their probity would be questioned if they recommended that he *be *discharged from the army, which they really believed was the proper thing to do.

Appendix to the Journals of the Senate and Assembly of the 30th Session of the Legislature of the State of California, 1893
I suggested to him in a conversation that he had better bring Mr. Sanders up here; that he might satisfy the officers better - at least I suggested that he t*ry *that.

Appendix to the Journals of the Senate and Assembly of the 30th Session of the Legislature of the State of California, 1893​Mr. Kerns, some time previous, had thought of introducing a bill in the Legislature in relation to the Superior Judges of Los Angeles County, and asked my views about it.  I suggested that he* write *to Mr. Dillon, as he was likely the best informed upon the subject - he was District Attorney of Los Angeles County, and I suggested a series of questions for him to ask Mr. Dillon.

---
Looking at those last two entries, I think it's very clear that these people are speaking extemporaneously and naturally.  This is part of their everyday speech patterns.  These are records of testimony before the legislature.  Their conversational habits were clearly not influenced by some set of early 20th century American writers who had re-introduced a lost and ancient form of subjunctive into written form.  The 20th century hadn't arrived yet.
---



> (2) The revival of the usage in written form in the US is placed by Visser in the 20th C, at the same time as the appearance of the form with 'not' before the verb. Given that the latter was a new development, it may be that there was a common  literary or pedagogical stimulus for both.



The revival of the usage in written form is also attributed by Visser to re-introduction to the written form from the spoken form.  So you agree with the written form re-introduction but disagree with the source being from spoken (American) English?  It's not a resurrection but a resurgence, an increase in popularity.  There are clearly examples from the early and late 19th century in England and the U.S.


At this point I'm tired of providing examples.  I don't intend to write a book on the subject, although I have a decent start now.    If you remain unconvinced, so *be* it. ​


----------



## Thomas Tompion

JamesM said:


> [...]Also, I don't think you've addressed the issue that "insisted that he go" and "insisted that he went" mean two different things in American English.  One means that I remained implacable on the demand that he go (in the past) and the other means I remained implacable on the fact that he actually had gone.  How are these distinguished in British English?  I suppose it might be "I insisted that he had gone".


I must admit, James, to having been mildly sceptical of your claim that AE speakers distinguished so clearly between these two meanings.

I went off to the  COCA (AE corpus) and looked at about 6 of the 125 pages containing the word 'insisted', and I could find not one counterexample.  A most emphatic and astonishingly consistent application of your principle, I thought.

The matter is not so clear in the BE I know.

_I insisted that he go_ sounds a little literary, but would have the AE meaning (I forced him to go).
_I insisted that he went _sounds idiomatic for the AE use with the subjunctive (I forced him to go).

_I insisted that he had gone_ would unambiguously give the AE indicative meaning (I refused to accept that anything else was the case) - the formula you suggested.


----------



## wandle

JamesM said:


> Visser's list is not exhaustive, only meaning to show examples.  The OED doesn't list every example from a period, only key examples.  That doesn't justify the judgment that the usage was rare in that time.


That was Visser's judgement: 


> ... it remained in use in Middle and early Modern English. After about 1600 instances become rarer and rarer.





JamesM said:


> Here are some other 19th century citations with subjunctive forms from Google Books.


The first three examples quoted are not cases of the preterite followed by a present subjunctive (they have a present tense
followed by a present). That leaves Visser's 1868 quotation from Louisa Alcott as the earliest American example of the usage in question.  

The rest of the examples do not seem to me to affect Visser's basic position. I agree that the quotations from testimony to the California legislature  reflect spoken usage, but since they come from around the same period  as the revival in written usage put forward by Visser, I do not see that  those examples affect the point greatly either as to its date or its  causation.

Visser's contention is that because the revival in written usage around the start of the 20th C. is American, that presumably means it had remained in spoken use there since the 1600s. That is certainly an argument, but hardly a proof.
The proposition that the Pilgrim Fathers spoke like that is evidently an inference backwards from the written revival centuries later, not an independent fact.

He says there was also a new development in America at the start of the 20th C. in the shape of the placing of 'not' before the verb. That implies that change was taking place. In other words, things were not static then: it is quite possible that, before or alongside the new development, a revival of an old usage had been started by academics and was carried on by subsequent generations of teachers. 

We know that Noah Webster deliberately compiled his dictionary with the purpose of establishing American usage as different and independent of British tradition. A similar spirit may have imbued other writers and teachers. We know that Strunk and White laid down their inconsistent rules on 'that' and 'which' and that these became seen as standard. That shows the top-down effect a professorial judgement could have.

Visser's evidence from British written sources indicates (1) that the idiom was in regular use from a very early period and (2) that it became progressively rarer after about 1600. We know also that it practically disappeared in spoken British usage. This may well mean that the reduction in written usage had followed the trend of spoken usage. That would imply that it had already been declining in spoken usage for some time before the Pilgrim Fathers set sail. In the absence of direct evidence, we have no reason to think the decline would not have continued in the colonies.

I would earnestly ask: please do not over-interpret my remarks, which I always try to qualify appropriately. For example, I said this:


> The revival of the usage in written form in the US is placed by Visser in the 20th C, at the same time as the appearance of the form with 'not' before the verb. Given that the latter was a new development, it may be that there was a common literary or pedagogical stimulus for both.


To which the reply was:


> The revival of the usage in written form is also attributed by Visser to re-introduction to the written form from the spoken form. So you agree with the written form re-introduction but disagree with the source being from spoken (American) English?


Why take it like that? I said that, subject to a proviso, 'it may be'  that there was a common stimulus for both the present-tense idiom and the placement of 'not'. That is a modest proposition. It raises a qualified possiblity. It does not mean that one view is right and another view wrong. Why make more of it?

Please read these comments in the spirit in which they are put forward: raising possiblities for the sake of discussion, while reserving judgement and of course avoiding dogmatism.


----------



## JamesM

As I said, I'm done.    My impression, however wrong it may be, is that you have predetermined your position and your effort is to gainsay any evidence that does not align with it.  There are dozens more examples from the 19th century in Google and Google Books, but rather than place them up here to have you invalidate the ones that are questionable and ignore those that are not I will direct my efforts elsewhere. 

It may be that you are raising possibilities for the sake of discussion.  That is not the impression I have received.  In a discussion there is a possibility of both sides changing their initial view of the topic.  I know that I have seen a great number of examples of "demanded that he should", after doing my research, and I'm much more keenly aware of its prevalence.  However, I don't think that anything I present as evidence of the past subjunctive being alive in the 19th century will see you budge one inch from your assertion.

I have put as much effort as I care to into this "discussion".   I am personally convinced by the examples I found that the past subjunctive was in use on both sides of the Atlantic in the 19th century and that it was much more common in the U.S.  You, apparently, are not.  I think we've exhausted this topic, as far as I'm concerned.  A discussion to me is not, A: "This didn't exist and was revived." B: "But here are examples of where it existed." A:"But three of those examples are wrong and, rather than address the others, I will repeat my assertion." B: "But there are more examples."  This is a tiresome form of banter and not a discussion, in my opinion.

If you really care to discuss this, have the good grace to acknowledge that at least some of the examples do not fit your assertion and perhaps delve into those a bit more.  That would be a discussion.


----------



## wandle

JamesM said:


> your assertion


What assertion? 


> the past subjunctive was in use on both sides of the Atlantic in the 19th century and that it was much more common in the U.S.


If you are referring to the case of the present subjunctive after a preterite (past tense) in the main verb, which is the usage discussed by Visser in section 870, then I do not doubt that that was in use on both sides of the Atlantic in the 19th century and was much more prevalent in the US. I have not disputed that proposition at all. 

However, that does not change the picture envisaged by Visser, because his evidence covers both sides of the Atlantic in that period.
The evidence suggests that the written usage was dying down in Britain during that period, and was coming into use in America. 
The American examples in this thread start with Alcott (1868) and become more frequent only towards the end  of the century.


> A discussion to me is not, A: "This didn't exist and was revived." B:  "But here are examples of where it existed." A:"But three of those  examples are wrong and, rather than address the others, I will repeat my  assertion." B: "But there are more examples."  This is a tiresome form  of banter and not a discussion, in my opinion.


If you find it tiresome, why fabricate it?

As mentioned earlier, and indicated earlier still, I have generally avoided assertions and confined myself to suggesting possibilities.


----------

