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Inchoateknowledge Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

subjunctive after adjectives

They are insisting he go/goes to Athens.
It is advisable that he spend (not spends) the summer holidays with you.

why is 'spends' not correct?
  

Top answer

I assume that the first sentence is there for a reason, and that you wish to understand why it allows both forms while the second allows only one. The reason is that insist has two meanings, or two shades of meaning, if you will. If you insist that someone goes to Athens, you are saying quite firmly that you know that the person makes regular trips to and from Athens.

— CalifJim

  • I assume that the first sentence is there for a reason, and that you wish to understand why it allows both forms while the second allows only one.
  • The reason is that insist has two meanings, or two shades of meaning, if you will.
  • If you insist that someone goes to Athens, you are saying quite firmly that you know that the person makes regular trips to and from Athens.
  • The person goes (regularly, as a habit) to Athens, and you know it, and you state it firmly, possibly in the face of resistance from others who do not believe it.
  • If you insist that someone go to Athens, you are in deliberative mode.
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25 Answers
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I assume that the first sentence is there for a reason, and that you wish to understand why it allows both forms while the second allows only one.

The reason is that insist has two meanings, or two shades of meaning, if you will.

If you insist that someone goes to Athens, you are saying quite firmly that you know that the person makes regular trips to and from Ath
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"If you insist that someone goes to Athens, you are saying quite firmly that you know that the person makes regular trips to and from Athens. The person goes (regularly, as a habit) to Athens, and you know it, and you state it firmly, possibly in the face of resistance from others who do not believe it."

This meaning of insist expresses serious possibility, does it not? Yo
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Sorry for butting in.

You know what! We’re only taught to learn it by rote this list of nouns and verbs “demand, proposal, suggestion; suggest, advise, order, command, insist, require, request……” And are never told the semantic meaning in common of all these words. “Envisioned act” has never been mentioned by them. What a pity!
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In those cases where subjunctive inflection is allowed, indicative inflection is allowed too.
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This meaning of insist expresses serious possibility, does it not?
No. Not to me. It expresses conviction and certainty.

She insists that she is right. (She knows that she is right, and says so with great conviction.)

There is a clear and definite difference between

1. Mother insists that Johnny take his medicine
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that's a good description of the two meanings of "insist" CalifJim. I never looked at it like that before.

However I think it's worth pointing out that Inchoateknowledge is also right: where the subjunctive is allowed, the indicative is also acceptable. That means that "Mother insists that Johnny takes his medicine" is ambiguous for a lot of people.
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"It expresses conviction and certainty." This is the key to my problem.
THanks Jim.
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The first sentence I took from a formal context where subjunctive is required and thesecond one is part of an informal text where subjunctive is optional, IMO.
Or, no, it does not justify the usage, sorry.
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Gents,

With all due respect, I have this question. Whether we are speaking of the visitors coming to the forum or English learners in general; do we really expect the ESL students and learners at the average level to have the ability to process, as well as determine when and how to apply the exceptions? To me subjunctive rule is subjunctive rule. I would accept "I insist that my son
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good question Goodman. My thinking is that this is the advanced grammar forum, and that learners should be made aware where the variants exist. if not, they may wonder why they learned the subjunctive, since native speakers seldom use it.

but I'm not a teacher.
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