Subjunctive mood


The subjunctive is a grammatical mood—a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude toward it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality such as: wish, emotion, possibility, judgement, opinion, obligation, or action that has not yet occurred; the precise situations in which they are used vary from language to language. The subjunctive is one of the irrealis moods—which refer to what is not necessarily real. It is often contrasted with the indicative, which is a realis mood—used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact.
Subjunctives occur most often, although not exclusively, in subordinate clauses, particularly that-clauses. Examples of the subjunctive in English are found in the sentences "I suggest that you be careful" and "It is important that she stay by your side."

Indo-European languages

Proto-Indo-European

The Proto-Indo-European language, the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, had two closely related moods: the subjunctive and the optative. Many of its daughter languages combined or merged these moods.
In Indo-European, the subjunctive was formed by using the full ablaut grade of the root of the verb, and appending the thematic vowel *-e- or *-o- to the root stem, with the full, primary set of personal inflections. The subjunctive was the Indo-European irrealis, used for hypothetical or counterfactual situations.
The optative mood was formed with a suffix *-ieh1 or *-ih1. The optative used the clitic set of secondary personal inflections. The optative was used to express wishes or hopes.
Among the Indo-European languages, only Albanian, Avestan, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit kept the subjunctive and the optative fully separate and parallel. However, in Sanskrit, use of the subjunctive is found only in the Vedic language of the earliest times, and the optative and imperative are comparatively less commonly used. In the later language, the subjunctive fell out of use, with the optative or imperative being used instead, or merged with the optative as in Latin. However, the first-person forms of the subjunctive continue to be used, as they are transferred to the imperative, which formerly, like Greek, had no first person forms.

Germanic languages

In the Germanic languages, subjunctives are also usually formed from old optatives, with the present subjunctive marked with *-ai- and the past with *-ī-. In German, these forms have been reduced to a schwa, spelled -e. The past tense, however, often displays i-umlaut. In Old Norse, both suffixes evolved into -i-, but i-umlaut occurs in the past subjunctive, which distinguishes them. The table below shows the Old Norse active paradigm for the verb :
While most of the signs of the subjunctive suffix have been removed in Modern English, the change from was to were in the modern English subjunctive of to be also marks addition of a vowel sound to the subjunctive form, and as such represents an echo of the Indo-European optative marker of five thousand years ago.

English

The subjunctive in Modern English occurs in a variety of contexts usually relating to desire or conditional actions. Regardless of the subject, the form of the present subjunctive verb that expresses present or past desires in that clauses is the bare form of the infinitive. Hence, the present subjunctive of "to go" is "I go", "you go", "he/she/it go", "we go", "they go". For instance: "It was required that he go to the back of the line" ; and "It is required that he go to the back of the line".
The English subjunctive also occurs in counterfactual dependent clauses, using a form of the verb that in the indicative would indicate a time of action prior to the one implied by the subjunctive. It is called the past subjunctive when referring counterfactually to the present, and is called the pluperfect subjunctive when referring counterfactually to the past. It occurs in that clauses following the main-clause verb "wish" and in if clauses expressing a condition that does not or did not hold.
The terms "present subjunctive" and "past subjunctive", such as those appearing in the following table, refer to the form and not to the time of action expressed.
As shown in the above table, the form of the subjunctive is distinguishable from the indicative in five circumstances:
However, even when the subjunctive and indicative forms are identical, their time references are usually different.
The verb "to be" is so distinguishable because its forms in Modern English derive from two different Old English verbs: beon and wesan. Such a combination of word forms of different origin is known as suppletion; in this case there are word forms of more than two different origins.
Some modal auxiliaries have a past subjunctive form. For example, the indicative will as in He will come tomorrow has the subjunctive form would as in I wish that he would come tomorrow. Likewise, the indicative can as in He can do it now has the subjunctive form could as in I wish that he could do it now. And the indicative shall as in I shall go there has the subjunctive form should as in If I should go there,....
In Early Modern English, the past subjunctive was distinguishable from the past indicative not only in the verb to be but also in the second-person singular of all verbs. For example: indicative thou sattest, but subjunctive thou sat. Nevertheless, in some texts in which the pronoun thou is used, a final -est or -st is sometimes added; for example, thou beest appears frequently in the work of Shakespeare and some of his contemporaries.

German

has two forms of the subjunctive mood, namely Konjunktiv I 'present subjunctive' and Konjunktiv II 'past subjunctive'. Despite their English names, both German subjunctives can be used for past and present time.
''Konjunktiv I''
The present subjunctive occurs in certain expressions, and in indirect speech. Its use can frequently be replaced by the indicative mood. For example, Er sagte, er sei Arzt is a neutral representation of what was said and makes no claim as to whether the speaker thinks the reported statement is true or not.
The past subjunctive can often be used to express the same sentiments: Er sagte, er wäre Arzt. Or, for example, instead of the formal, written Er sagte, er habe keine Zeit 'He said he had no time' with present subjunctive 'habe', one can use past subjunctive 'hätte': Er sagte, er hätte keine Zeit.
In speech, however, the past subjunctive is common without any implication that the speaker doubts the speech he is reporting. As common is use of the indicative Er sagte, er ist Arzt and Er sagte, er hat keine Zeit. This is often changed in written reports to the forms using present subjunctive.
The present subjunctive is completely regular for all verbs except the verb sein. It is formed by adding -e, -est, -e, -en, -et, -en to the stem of the infinitive. The verb sein has the stem sei- for the present subjunctive declension, but it has no ending for the first and third person singular. While the use of present subjunctive for reported speech is formal and common in newspaper articles, its use in colloquial speech is in continual decline.
It is possible to express the subjunctive in various tenses, including the perfect and the future. For the preterite, which forms the Konjunktiv II with a somewhat other meaning, indirect speech has to switch to the perfect tense, so that: "Er sagte: 'Ich war da.'" becomes "Er sagte, er sei da gewesen".
''Konjunktiv II''
The KII or past subjunctive is used to form the conditional tense and, on occasion, as a replacement for the present subjunctive when both indicative and subjunctive moods of a particular verb are indistinguishable.
Every German verb has a past subjunctive conjugation, but in spoken German the conditional is most commonly formed using würde with an infinitive. For example: An deiner Stelle würde ich ihm nicht helfen 'I would not help him if I were you'. In the example, the Konjunktiv II form of helfen is very unusual. However, using 'würde' instead of hätte and wäre can be perceived anywhere from awkward to incorrect. There is a tendency to use the forms in würde rather in main clauses as in English; in subclauses even regular forms can still be heard.
Some verbs exist for which either construction can be used, such as with finden and tun. Many dictionaries consider the past subjunctive declension of such verbs the only proper expression in formal written German.
The past subjunctive is declined from the stem of the preterite declension of the verb with the appropriate present subjunctive declension ending as appropriate. In most cases, an umlaut is appended to the stem vowel if possible, for example: ich war → ich wäre, ich brachte → ich brächte.

Dutch

has the same subjunctive tenses as German, though they are rare in contemporary speech. The same two tenses as in German are sometimes considered subjunctive mood and sometimes conditional mood. In practice, potential subjunctive uses of verbs are difficult to differentiate from indicative uses. This is partly because the subjunctive mood has fallen together with the indicative mood:
Archaic and traditional phrases still contain the subjunctive mood:

Latin

The Latin subjunctive has many uses, contingent upon the nature of a clause within a sentence:
Within independent clauses:
  1. Exhortation or command
  2. Concession
  3. Wish
  4. Question of doubt
  5. Possibility or contingency
Within dependent clauses:
  1. Condition
  2. Purpose
  3. Characteristic
  4. Result
  5. Time
  6. Indirect questions
Historically, the Latin subjunctive adopted the optative forms, while some of the original subjunctive forms went on to compose the Latin future tense, especially in the Latin third conjugation. The *-i- of the old optative manifests itself in the fact that the Latin subjunctives typically have a high vowel even when the indicative mood has a lower vowel; Latin rogamus, "we ask", makes a subjunctive rogemus, "let us ask".
Conjugation1st2nd3rd3rdIO4th
1st sing.rogemhabeamcurramexcipiamveniam
2nd sing.rogeshabeascurrasexcipiasvenias
3rd sing.rogethabeatcurratexcipiatveniat
1st pluralrogemushabeamuscurramusexcipiamusveniamus
2nd pluralrogetishabeatiscurratisexcipiatisveniatis
3rd pluralrogenthabeantcurrantexcipiantveniant

The subjunctive mood retains a highly distinct form for nearly all verbs in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian, and for a number of verbs in French. All of these languages inherit their subjunctive from Latin, where the subjunctive mood combines both forms and usages from a number of original Indo-European inflection sets, including the original subjunctive and the optative mood.
In many cases, the Romance languages use the subjunctive in the same ways that English does; however, they use them in other ways as well. For example, English generally uses the auxiliary may or let to form desiderative expressions, such as "Let it snow". The Romance languages use the subjunctive for these; French, for example, would say, "Qu'il neige" and "Qu'ils vivent jusqu'à leur vieillesse". However, in the case of the first-person plural, these languages have imperative forms: "Let us go" in French is "Allons-y". In addition, the Romance languages tend to use the subjunctive in various kinds of subordinate clauses, such as those introduced by words meaning although English: "Although I am old, I feel young"; French: Bien que je sois vieux, je me sens jeune.
In Spanish, phrases with words like lo que, quien, or donde and subjunctive verb forms are often translated to English with some variation of "whatever".

French

Present and past subjunctives
The subjunctive is used mostly with verbs or adverbs expressing desire, doubt or eventuality; it may also express an order. It is almost always preceded by the conjunction .
Use of the subjunctive is in many respects similar to English:
But sometimes it is not:
French uses a past subjunctive, equivalent in tense to the passé composé in the indicative mood, called passé du subjonctif. It is the only other subjunctive tense used in modern-day conversational French. It is formed with the auxiliary être or avoir and the past participle of the verb. Unlike other Romance languages, such as Spanish, it is not always necessary that the preceding clause be in the past to trigger the passé du subjonctif in the subordinate clause:
Imperfect and pluperfect subjunctives
French also has an imperfect subjunctive, which in older, formal, or literary writing, replaces the present subjunctive in a subordinate clause when the main clause is in a past tense :
Similarly, pluperfect subjunctive replace past subjunctive in same context:

Italian

The Italian subjunctive is commonly used, although, especially in the spoken language, it is often substituted by the indicative.
The subjunctive is used mainly in subordinate clauses following a set phrase or conjunction, such as benché, senza che, prima che, or perché for example. It is also used with verbs of doubt, possibility and expressing an opinion or desire, for example with credo che, è possibile che and ritengo che, and sometimes with superlatives and virtual superlatives.
Differently from the French subjunctive, the Italian one is used after expressions like "Penso che", where in French the indicative would be used. However, it is also possible to use the subjunctive after the expression "Je ne pense pas que...", and in questions like "Penses-tu que...", even though the indicative forms are correct too.
Present subjunctive
The present subjunctive is similar to, but still mostly distinguishable from, the present indicative. Subject pronouns are often used with the present subjunctive where they are normally omitted in the indicative, since in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd person singular forms are the same, so the person is not implicitly implied from the verb. Irregular verbs tend to follow the 1st person singular form, such as the present subjunctive forms of andare, which goes to vada etc..
The present subjunctive is used in a range of situations in clauses taking the subjunctive.
The present subjunctive is used mostly in subordinate clauses, as in the examples above. However, exceptions include imperatives using the subjunctive, and general statements of desire.
The Italian imperfect subjunctive is very similar in appearance to the French imperfect subjunctive, and forms are largely regular, apart from the verbs essere, dare and stare. However, unlike in French, where it is often replaced with the present subjunctive, the imperfect subjunctive is far more common. Verbs with a contracted infinitive, such as dire revert to the longer form in the imperfect subjunctive.
The imperfect subjunctive is used in subordinate clauses taking the subjunctive where the sense of the verb requires the imperfect.
The imperfect subjunctive is used in “if” clauses, where the main clause is in the conditional tense, as in English and German.
The perfect and pluperfect subjunctives are formed much like the indicative perfect and pluperfect, except the auxiliary verb takes the present and imperfect subjunctive respectively.
They are used in subordinate clauses which require the subjunctive, where the sense of the verb requires use of the perfect or pluperfect.
The subjunctive mood is a fundamental element of Spanish. Its spoken form makes use of it to a much larger degree than other Latin languages and it is in no case homonymous to any other tense. Furthermore, it is common to find long complex sentences almost entirely in the subjunctive.
The subjunctive is used in conjunction with impersonal expressions and expressions of emotion, opinion, desire or viewpoint. More importantly, it applies to most hypothetical situations, likely or unlikely, desired or not. Normally, only certitude of a fact will remove the possibility of its use. Unlike French, it is also used in phrases expressing the past conditional. The negative of the imperative shares the same form with the present subjunctive.
Common introductions to the subjunctive would include the following:
Nevertheless, the subjunctive can stand alone to supplant other tenses.
For example, "I would like" can be said in the conditional Me gustaría or in the past subjunctive Quisiera, as in Quisiera que vinieras, i.e. "I would like you to come".
Comfort with the subjunctive form and the degree to which a second-language speaker attempts to avoid using it is a good way to gauge his or her fluency in the language. Complex use of the subjunctive is a constant pattern of everyday speech among natives but difficult to interiorize even by relatively proficient Spanish learners que vinieras el jueves.
An example of the subtlety of the Spanish subjunctive is the way the tense modifies the expression "be it as it may" :
The same alterations could be made to the expression Sea como sea or "no matter how" with similar changes in meaning.
Spanish has two past subjunctive forms. They are almost identical, except that where the "first form" has -ra-, the "second form" has -se-. Both forms are usually interchangeable although the -se- form may be more common in Spain than in other Spanish-speaking areas. The -ra- forms may also be used as an alternative to the conditional in certain structures.
Present subjunctive
In Spanish, a present subjunctive form is always different from the corresponding present indicative form. For example, whereas English "that they speak" or French "qu'ils parlent" can be either indicative or subjunctive, Spanish "que hablen" is unambiguously subjunctive. The same is true for all verbs, regardless of their subject.
When to use:
Examples:
Used interchangeably, the past subjunctive can end either in "-se" or "-ra". Both forms stem from the third-person plural of the preterite. For example, the verb "estar", when conjugated in the third-person plural of the preterite, becomes "estuvieron". Then, drop the "-ron" ending, and add either "-se" or "-ra". Thus, it becomes "estuviese" or "estuviera". The past subjunctive may be used with "if... then" statements with the conditional mood. Example:
In Spanish, the future subjunctive tense is now rare but still used in certain dialects of Spanish and in formal speech. It is usually reserved for literature, archaic phrases and expressions, and legal documents. Example:
Phrases expressing the subjunctive in a future period normally employ the present subjunctive. For example: "I hope that it 'will rain' tomorrow" would simply be "Espero que 'llueva' mañana".
Pluperfect (past perfect) subjunctive
In Spanish, the pluperfect subjunctive tense is used to describe a continuing wish in the past. "Desearía que hubieras ido al cine conmigo el viernes pasado.". To form this tense, first the subjunctive form of haber is conjugated. Then the participle of the main verb.
Though the "-re" form appears to be more closely related to the imperfect subjunctive "-ra" form than the "-se" form, that is not the case. The "-se" form of the imperfect subjunctive derives from the pluperfect subjunctive of Vulgar Latin and the "-ra" from the pluperfect indicative, combining to overtake the previous pluperfect subjunctive ending. The "-re" form is more complicated, stemming from a fusion of the perfect subjunctive and future perfect indicative—which, though in different moods, happened to be identical in the second and third persons—before losing the perfect in the shift to future subjunctive, the same perfect nature that was the only thing the forms originally shared. So the "-ra" and "-se" forms always had a past meaning, but only the "-se" form always belonged with the subjunctive mood that the "-re" form had since its emergence.

Portuguese

In Portuguese, as in Spanish, the subjunctive is complex, being generally used to talk about situations which are seen as doubtful, imaginary, hypothetical, demanded, or required. It can also express emotion, opinion, disagreement, denial, or a wish. Its value is similar to the one it has in formal English:
Present subjunctive
As in Spanish, the imperfect subjunctive is in vernacular use, and it is employed, among other things, to make the tense of a subordinate clause agree with the tense of the main clause:
The imperfect subjunctive is also used when the main clause is in the conditional:
Note that there are authors who regard the conditional of Portuguese as a 'future in the past' of the indicative mood, rather than as a separate mood; they call it futuro do pretérito, especially in Brazil.
Future subjunctive
Portuguese differs from other Ibero-Romance languages in having retained the medieval future subjunctive, which is rarely used in Spanish and Galician and has been lost in other West Iberic languages. It expresses a condition that must be fulfilled in the future, or is assumed to be fulfilled, before an event can happen. Spanish and English will use the present tense in this type of clause.
For example, in conditional sentences whose main clause is in the conditional, Portuguese, Spanish and English employ the past tense in the subordinate clause. Nevertheless, if the main clause is in the future, Portuguese will employ the future subjunctive where English and Spanish use the present indicative. Contrast the following two sentences.
The first situation is counterfactual; the listener knows that the speaker is not a king. However, the second statement expresses a promise about the future; the speaker may yet be elected president.
For a different example, a father speaking to his son might say:
The future subjunctive is identical in form to the personal infinitive in regular verbs, but they differ in some irregular verbs of frequent use. However, the possible differences between the two tenses are due only to stem changes. They always have the same endings.
It is important to see how the meaning of sentences can change by switching subjunctive and indicative:
Below, there is a table demonstrating subjunctive and conditional conjugation for regular verbs of the first paradigm, exemplified by falar .
Grammatical personPast subjunctivePresent subjunctiveFuture subjunctiveConditional
Eufalassefalefalarfalaria
Tufalassesfalesfalaresfalarias
Ele/Elafalassefalefalarfalaria
Nósfalássemosfalemosfalarmosfalaríamos
Vósfalásseisfaleisfalardesfalaríeis
Eles/Elasfalassemfalemfalaremfalariam
Compound subjunctives
Compound verbs in subjunctive are necessary in more complex sentences, such as subordinate clauses with embedded perfective tenses e.g., perfective state in the future. To form compound subjunctives auxiliar verbs must conjugate to the respective subjunctive tense, while the main verbs must take their participles.
Grammatical personPast subjunctivePresent subjunctiveFuture subjunctiveConditional
Eutivesse/houvesse faladotenha/haja faladotiver/houver faladoteria/haveria falado
Tutivesses/houvesses faladotenhas/hajas faladotiveres/houveres faladoterias/haverias falado
Ele/Elativesse/houvesse faladotenha/haja faladotiver/houver faladoteria/haveria falado
Nóstivéssemos/houvéssemos faladotenhamos/hajamos faladotivermos/houvermos faladoteríamos/haveríamos falado
Vóstivésseis/houvésseis faladotenhais/hajais faladotiverdes/houverdes faladoteríeis/haveríeis falado
Eles/Elastivessem/houvessem faladotenham/hajam faladotivermos/houverem faladoteriam/haveriam falado

Romanian

Romanian is part of the Balkan Sprachbund and as such uses the subjunctive more extensively than other Romance languages. The subjunctive forms always include the conjunction să, which within these verbal forms plays the role of a morphological structural element. The subjunctive has two tenses: the past tense and the present tense. It is usually used in subordinate clauses.
Present subjunctive
The present subjunctive is usually built in the 1st and 2nd person singular and plural by adding the conjunction să before the present indicative I have; indicative: vii you come; conjunctive: să vii. In the 3rd person most verbs have a specific conjunctive form which differs from the indicative either in the ending or in the stem itself; there is however no distinction between the singular and plural of the present conjunctive in the 3rd person he has; indicative: au they have; conjunctive: să aibă they have; indicative: vine he comes; conjunctive: să vină he comes; indicative: vin they come; conjunctive: să vină.
The present tense is by far the most widely used of the two subjunctive tenses and is used frequently after verbs that express wish, preference, permission, possibility, request, advice, etc.: a vrea to want, a dori to wish, a prefera to prefer, a lăsa to let, to allow, a ruga to ask, a sfătui to advise, a sugera to suggest, a recomanda to recommend, a cere to demand, to ask for, a interzice to forbid, a permite to allow, to give permission, a se teme to be afraid, etc.
When used independently, the subjunctive indicates a desire, a fear, an order or a request, i.e. has modal and imperative values. The present subjunctive is used in questions having the modal value of should:
The present subjunctive is often used as an imperative, mainly for other persons than the second person. When used with the second person, it is even stronger than the imperative. The first-person plural can be preceded by the interjection hai, which intensifies the imperative meaning of the structure:
The subjunctive present is used in certain set phrases used as greetings in specific situations:
The past tense of the subjunctive mood has one form for all persons and numbers of all the verbs, which is să fi followed by the past participle of the verb. The past subjunctive is used after the past optative-conditional of the verbs that require the subjunctive, in constructions that express the necessity, the desire in the past:
When used independently, the past subjunctive indicates a regret related to a past-accomplished action that is seen as undesirable at the moment of speaking:

Welsh

In Welsh, there are two forms of the subjunctive: present and imperfect. The present subjunctive is barely ever used in spoken Welsh except in certain fixed phrases, and is restricted in most cases to the third person singular. However, it is more likely to be found in literary Welsh, most widely in more old-fashioned registers. The third-person singular is properly used after certain conjunctions and prepositions but in spoken Welsh the present subjunctive is frequently replaced by either the infinitives, the present tense, the conditional, or the future tense.
Literary EnglishLiterary WelshSpoken EnglishSpoken Welsh
When need bePan fo angenWhen there'll be needPan fydd angen
Before it beCyn boBefore it'sCyn iddi fod
In order that there beFel y boIn order for there to beEr mwyn bod
She left so that she be safeGadawodd hi fel y bo hi'n ddiogelShe left so that she'd be safeGadawodd hi fel y byddai hi'n ddiogel
It is time that I goMae'n amser yr elwyfIt's time for me to goMae'n amser imi fynd

The imperfect subjunctive, as in English, only affects the verb bod. It is used after pe and it must be accompanied by the conditional subjunctive e.g. Pe bawn i'n gyfoethog, teithiwn i trwy'r byd. = "If I were rich, I would travel throughout the world."
For all other verbs in Welsh, as in English, the imperfect subjunctive takes the same stems as do the conditional subjunctive and the imperfect indicative.

Scottish Gaelic

In Scottish Gaelic, the subjunctive does not exist but still takes the forms from the indicative: the present subjunctive takes the future indicative and the imperfect subjunctive takes the imperfect indicative. The subjunctive is normally used in proverbs or truisms in phrases that start with 'May...'
For example,
Or when used as the conjunction, the subjunctive is used, like every other language, in a more demanding or wishful statement:
  • Se àm gum fàg e a-nis. - It is time that he leave now.
  • Tha e riatanach gun tèid iad gu sgoil gach là. - It is necessary that they go to school every day.
  • Dh'fhaighnich e nach faic mi ise. - He asked that I not see her.
The subjunctive in Gaelic will sometimes have the conjunction gun can be translated as 'that' or as 'May...' while making a wish. For negatives, nach is used instead.
In Scottish Gaelic, the imperfect subjunctive is exactly the same as the indicative only that it uses robh in both the affirmative and negative forms, as the interrogative does not exist in any subjunctive form in any language, of bi- 'to be' although robh is taken from the interrogative form in the imperfect indicative of bi.
For every other verb in Gaelic, the same follows for the imperfect subjunctive where the interrogative or negative form of the verb is used for both the affirmative and negative form of the verb and, like Welsh, the imperfect subjunctive forms can be exactly the same as the conditional subjunctive forms apart from bi.
Examples:
Native speakers would tend to use the following for the second of the above examples:
In the Irish language, the subjunctive, like in Scottish Gaelic, covers the idea of wishing something and so appears in some famous Irish proverbs and blessings. It is considered an old-fashioned tense for daily speech but still appears often in print.
The subjunctive is normally formed from "Go", plus the subjunctive form of the verb, plus the subject, plus the thing being wished for. For instance, the subjunctive form of "téigh" is "té":
Or again, the subjunctive of "tabhair" is "tuga":
Or to take a third example, sometimes the wish is also a curse, like this one from Tory Island in Donegal:
The subjunctive is generally formed by taking the stem of the verb and adding on the appropriate subjunctive ending depending on broad or slender, and first or second conjugation. For example, to the stem of bog ' is added -a giving as its subjunctive in the first person boga mé:
First conjugation:
mol 'mola mémola túmola sé/símolaimidmola sibhmola siad
bris 'brise mébrise túbrise sé/síbrisimidbrise sibhbrise siad

Second conjugation:
beannaigh 'beannaí mébeannaí túbeannaí sé/síbeannaímidbeannaí sibhbeannaí siad
bailigh 'bailí mébailí túbailí sé/síbailímidbailí sibhbailí siad

E.g. "go mbeannaí Dia thú" – May God bless you.
There is also some irregularity in certain verbs in the subjunctive. The verb bí ' is the most irregular verb in Irish :
Present indicativetá mé/táimtá tútá sé/sítá muid/táimidtá sibhtá siad
Present subjunctiveraibh méraibh túraibh sé/sírabhaimidraibh sibhraibh siad

The Irish phrase for "thank you" – go raibh maith agat – uses the subjunctive of "bí" and literally means "may there be good at-you".
Some verbs don't follow the conjugation of the subjunctive exactly as conjugated above. These irregularities apply to verbs whose stem ends already in a stressed vowel and thus due to the rules of Irish orthography and pronunciation, can't take another. For example:
Present indicativePresent subjunctive
téigh 'téann túté tú
sáigh 'sánn túsá tú
luigh 'luíonn túluí tú
*feoigh 'feonn túfeo tú

Where the subjunctive is used in English, it may not be used in Irish and another tense might be used instead. For example:
The Slavic languages lost the Proto-Indo-European subjunctive altogether, while the old optative was repurposed as the imperative mood. Some modern Slavic languages have developed a new subjunctive-like construction, although there is no consistent terminology. For example, some authors do not distinguish the subjunctive mood from the optative mood,
others do.

Polish

The subjunctive mood is formed using the by particle, either alone or forming a single word with the complex conjunctions żeby, iżby, ażeby, aby, coby. The mood does not have its own morphology, but instead a rule that the by-containing particle must be placed in front of the dependent clause. Compare:
The subjunctive mood in the dependent clause is obligatory in the case of certain independent clauses, for example it is incorrect to say chcę, że to zrobi, but the subjunctive mood must be used instead: chcę, by to zrobił.
The subjunctive can never be mistaken with the conditional, despite that in the case of the conditional mood the clitic by and derivatives can move. See that in the following examples:
There is no conjunction, which would indicate the subjunctive. In particular, there is no żeby.
Compare to the closely related optative mood, e.g. the subjunctive nie nalegam, by wysłał list vs the optative oby wysłał list.

Bulgarian

Modal distinctions in subordinate clauses are expressed not through verb endings, but through the choice of complementizer - че or да . The verbs remain unchanged. In ordinary sentences, the imperfective aspect is most often used for the indicative, and the perfective for the subjunctive, but any combination is possible, with the corresponding change in meaning.
The latter is more insisting, since the imperfective is the more immediate construction. Thus:

Arabic

In Standard/Literary Arabic, the verb in its imperfect aspect has a subjunctive form called the manṣūb form. It is distinct from the imperfect indicative in most of its forms: where the indicative has "-u", the subjunctive has "-a"; and where the indicative has "-na" or "-ni", the subjunctive has nothing at all.
The subjunctive is used in that-clauses, after Arabic an: urīdu an aktuba "I want to write." However, in conditional and precative sentences, such as "if he goes" or "let him go", a different mood of the imperfective aspect, the jussive, majzūm, is used.
In many spoken Arabic dialects, there remains a distinction between indicative and subjunctive; however, it is not through a suffix but rather a prefix.
In Levantine Arabic, the indicative has b- while the subjunctive lacks it:
Egyptian Arabic uses a simple construction that precedes the conjugated verbs with or ; the following are some examples:
Final short vowels were elided in Hebrew in prehistoric times, so that the distinction between the Proto-Semitic indicative, subjunctive and jussive had largely been lost even in Biblical Hebrew. The distinction does remain for some verbal categories, where the original final morphemes effected lasting secondary changes in word-internal syllabic structure and vowel length. These include weak roots with a medial or final vowel, such as yaqūm "he rises / will rise" versus yaqom "may he rise" and yihye "he will be" versus yehi "may he be", imperfect forms of the hiphil stem, and also generally for first person imperfect forms: vs. . In modern Hebrew, the situation has been carried even further, with forms like yaqom and yehi becoming non-productive; instead, the future tense is used for the subjunctive, often with the particle she- added to introduce the clause, if it is not already present.
Biblical subjunctive forms survive in non-productive phrases in such forms as the third-person singular of to be and to live, mostly in a literary register:
Subordinate clauses in Babylonian and Standard Babylonian Akkadian are marked with a -u on verbs ending in a consonant, and with nothing after vocalic endings or after ventive endings. Due to the consonantal structure of semitic languages, and Akkadian sound laws, the addition of the -u might trigger short vowels in the middle of the word to disappear. Assyrian Akkadian uses a more complicated system with both -u and -ni as markers of subordination. The ending -ni was used in the instances where -u could not be used as stated above. During Middle and Neo Assyrian the -ni ending became compulsory on all subordinate verbs, even those that already had the -u, resulting in -ni and-ūni as markers of subordination.

Uralic languages

Hungarian

This mood in Hungarian is generally used to express polite demands and suggestions. The endings are identical between imperative, conjunctive and subjunctive; it is therefore often called the conjunctive-imperative mood.
Examples:
Note that "demand" is nowhere near as rude as it might sound in English. It is a polite but firm request, but not as polite as, say, "would you...".
The characteristic letter in its ending is -j-, and in the definite conjunctive conjugation the endings appear very similar to those of singular possession, with a leading letter -j-.
An unusual feature of the mood's endings is that there exist a short and a long form for the second person singular. The formation of this for regular verbs differs between the indefinite and definite: the indefinite requires just the addition of -j, which differs from the longer ending in that the last two sounds are omitted. The short version of the definite form also drops two letters, but another two. It drops, for example: the -ja- in -jad, leaving just -d, as can be seen in add above.
There are several groups of exceptions involving verbs that end in -t. The rules for how this letter, and a preceding letter, should change when the subjunctive endings are applied are quite complicated, see the article Hungarian verbs.
As usual, gemination of a final sibilant consonant is demonstrated when a j-initial ending is applied:
When referring to the demands of others, the subjunctive is demonstrated:

Turkic languages

Turkish

There is no one-to-one relationship between the subjunctive mode in foreign languages and the modes in Turkish. The subjunctive mode of other languages can be compared with imperative mode , necessitative mood , obtative mode , desiderative mood , conditional mood in Turkish. Of the above 5 moods, 3 moods are additionally translated as "subjunctive mode " too.
An examples of an obtative mode is gideyim, gide, gidelim, gideler. Suggested actions and desires are expressed with the obtative verb. The suffixes -eyim, -elim and other forms are used to form a obtative verb. The Turkish obtative means 'let someone do something' in English. Forming the obtative:

  1. . The suffix -eyim/ -ayım. The suffix -eyim or -ayım is used for the singular form of the first person according to the last vowel of the verb and it means 'let me do'. Use the suffix -ayım: if the last vowel of the word is a, ı, o, or u'. Use the suffix -eyim: if the last vowel of the word is e, i, ö, or ü. If the verb root ends in a vowel the letter 'y' is added after the verb root: ağlamak -> ağlayayım ; uyumak -> uyuyayım.
  2. The suffix -elim/ -alım. The suffix -elim or -alım is used for the plural form of the first person according to the last vowel of the verb and it means 'let us do'. Use the suffix -alım: if the last vowel of the word is a, ı, o, or u'. Use the suffix -elim: if the last vowel of the word is e, i, ö, or ü. Bugün araba sürelim. Bu akşam için kek yapalım.
An examples of an conditional mode is: Çalışırsa kazanır, he will win ), çalıştıysa kazanır.
An examples of an necessitative mood is: Benim gelmem gerek, Dün toplantıya katılman gerekirdi.
An examples of an imperative mode is: siz gelin, onlar gelsinler.
An examples of an desiderative mood is: Ah! şimdi burada olsaydı ; Keşke burada olaydı.; Keşke arabam olsa da otobüse binmesem ; Keşke arabam olsaydı da otobüse binmeseydim ; Keşke arabam olsa o zaman otobüse binmem; Keşke arabam olsaydı o zaman otobüse binmezdim.