Anything to infer from subjunctives?

phosita_phoeatah

Maybe I'm thinking too much, but perhaps not.

I first posted this question in the comments section of one of the CC lessons (https://7sage.com/lesson/quiz-group-1-and-2-translations-1-answers/?ss_completed_lesson=17922), but since no one has yet to respond, I'm posting this here.

Main gist is, how should I treat subjunctives in questions?

Take, for instance, one of the sentences from this particular lesson "I would not be able to see Arun if he were in the next room."

According to standard grammar rules, "[I]f he were" indicates a subjunctive, which means in fact that Arun is not is the next room. This means that the sufficient is thus negated.

Or another example, this one from Fiddlers on the Roof. One of the famous scores has the line "If I were a rich man..." The character singing is not rich, that's why the subjunctive form of the verb "to be" is used.

If I see such a phrasing in the stimulus of a question, shall I assume that the sufficient is negated?

Dimi .

I am not exactly sure what you mean by the subjunctive form , but here is my explanation to your question with LSAT/Core Curriculum terminology. The word "if" is known as a sufficient indicator on the LSAT, or in other words, it is enough to trigger some necessary condition. So what you have is a conditional statement that can be put in the "if-then" form. Conditional statements are hypotheticals, one of the ideas needs to be triggered in order to infer something. For instance, the sentence you provided can be broken into the conditional : "IF Arun is in the next room(NR) THEN I would not be able to see(S) Arun" or symbolically as NR -> /S . Sufficient ideas are always on the left side of the arrow. This sentence has the sufficient idea later on in this sentence, but the rule still applies with the sufficient idea being on the left side of the arrow and the necessary idea being on the right. Later in the curriculum you'll realize this sentence expresses an idea identical to that of a "not both" rule in logic games. What that means is both things cannot happen at the same time. So if I told you Arun is in the next room, you can infer that he was not seen based off the conditional provided. Hope this helped.

phosita_phoeatah

Thanks for taking the time to respond, but unfortunately, the salient point (of something implying that the sufficient not being satisfied) was not addressed.

Contrast the following, both phrased as conditionals, but with the latter expressly telling you that the sufficient is false.

Context: it's now 11 pm, and you have to get up at 8 am next morning. You would prefer at least eight hours of sleep.

Scenario 1. You can go to bed before 12 midnight. The correct way to describe this situation is:
If I go to bed in the next hour, I will/shall get eight hours of sleep.

This means you can go to bed in the next hour and get eight hours of sleep.

Scenario 2. You need to stay up until at least 1 am to finish something. You wistfully think to yourself how nice it would be to be able to go to bed.
If I went (or alternatively were to go) to bed in the next hour, I would get eight hours of sleep.

There's no way you are going to bed in this latter scenario. You are merely expressing something you would like to do but cannot do. The sufficient part of the statement does not come to fruition.

This is what a subjunctive expresses, a counterfactual where the sufficient isn't fulfilled. My question is whether this fact (of a stimulus straight up implying the sufficient being unfulfilled) is of relevance on the LSATs.

fin..501

As far as the subjunctive goes, I don't believe it's accurate to say that it automatically negates anything grammatically.

The subjunctive indicates a hypothetical event, but the factual status of the hypothetical is un-inferable from observing use of the subjunctive. The reality is that "if" statements often ought to use the subjunctive. "If I were rich, I would..." has been colloquialized to "if I was rich, I would..." but the meaning of those two sentences is identical. There is an implication that you're not currently rich, but not that you could never be rich, and really the issue with this application as an example is that there are two options "rich" or "not rich." What if I had $100, and my friend had $10, and I said "If I were you, I would get a sandwich, but, me, I'm getting lobster." "If I were you" doesn't imply that I don't have $10, and I do in fact have $10. The rich/not rich is bimodal, so I think there is a stronger implication in that case. If only one of the two choices can be true, then the hypothetical aspect of the subjunctive probably does imply that the one you mention is not factually true.

To the other example, "If I were to go to bed at 10pm..." doesn't imply that it is absolutely not a possibility to go to bed at 10pm, it might imply that you are weighing alternative hypotheticals. Like if I said (were to say), "If I were to go (went) to bed at 10pm, I would get enough sleep; however, if I were to go (went) to bed at 11pm, I would not." I don't think the attainability of either of these possibilities is implied by the phrasing or use of the subjunctive.

In Spanish, the subjunctive is used much more often than in English, and occupies a large role in daily speech. For instance: "Ojala que tenga un buen dia" = "I hope that you have a nice day." Anything that you hope for is naturally a hypothetical, and thus ought to be subjunctive, but English doesn't bother with an explicit subjunctive in this context, and we don't have a convenient conjugation to specify the subjunctive here. Despite "tenga" being a subjunctive, the speaker is not implying that it isn't a possibility that the person he's speaking to "has" a nice day, the direction of the day could go either way and the speaker implies no knowledge or thought on what might happen.

These are just my thoughts on the question. Feel free to contest any of them I'm not an English teacher or anything.

Adding**: I think the bimodal point is the best one in here but not sure if bimodal is the right word... I mean two discrete possibilities. Bi-something I don't remember.
edit 2: "If I were you," does imply that I am not you.

phosita_phoeatah

Thanks for the nuanced explanation. Certainly adds a lot of context to how I should be approaching these.