Forms of the subjunctive mood

The described system is not finished in terms of the historical development of language; on the contrary, it is in the state of making and change. Its actual manifestations are complicated by neutralizations of formal contrasts (such as, for instance, between the past indicative and the past subjunctive in reported speech); by neutraliza­tions of semantic contrasts (such as, for instance, between the con-siderative modal spective and the desiderative modal spective); by fluctuating uses of the auxiliaries (would - should); by fluctuating uses of the finite be in the singular (were - was); etc. Our task in the objective study of language, as well as in language teaching, is to accurately register these phenomena, to explain their mechanism and systemic implications, to show the relevant tendencies of usage in terms of varying syntactic environments, topical contexts, stylistic preferences.

As we see, the category of mood, for all the positive linguistic work performed upon it, continues to be a tremendously interesting field of analytical observation. There is no doubt that its numerous particular properties, as well as its fundamental qualities as a whole, will be further exposed, clarified, and paradigmatically ordered in the course of continued linguistic research.