Temporal Relations within the Oblique Moods

Oblique mood forms distinguish the categories of aspect, correlation and voice, but they have no tense category. Otherwise stated, they cannot refer the action directly to the present, past or future. They can only indicate if the action of the verb in the Oblique Mood coincides in time with the action of the indicative mood form in the principal clause, or precedes it. This relative expression of time-reference is based on the category of correlation, that is, a non-perfect form of Subjunctive II, the Conditional or the Suppositional Mood (see the table above) in the subordinate clause denotes an action simultaneous with the action expressed by the indicative mood form in the principal clause:

I wish I were home ( were denotes a present action which is simultaneous with the present action).

I was wishing I were still there (were denotes a past action since it is simultaneous with the past action).

Perfect forms of Subjunctive II, the Conditional and the Suppositional Mood indicate priority to the action expressed by the indicative mood form in the principal clause. So perfect forms always express past actions:

I wish I hadn’t got into this mess ( hadn’t got denotes a past action which is prior to the present action).

If there is no indicative mood form in the sentence than a non-perfect oblique mood form directly refers the action to the present or future:

I wouldn’t do a thing like that without telling you.

If wishes were horses beggars would ride.

Perfect oblique mood forms refer the actions to the past:

Ten years ago, Maurice wouldn’t have spoken like this.

If we’ d been caught last night – what would have happened to us?

Subjunctive II

Form: Subjunctive II has two basic forms: non-perfect Subjunctive II is synthetical and is homonymous with the Past Indicative: spoke, went, built, wrote, did, etc. The only exception is the verb to be, whose Subjunctive II from is were for all persons: I/she/he/ it were (was is also possible with I/he/she/it and is more common in conversational English). Perfect Subjunctive II is homonymous with the Past Perfect Indicative for all verbs: had done, had gone, had written, etc.