Historical Subjunctive Forms
The first table below shows the present and past subjunctive endings in use at various stages of the development of English: in Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English and Modern English. Forms which differ from the corresponding indicative are bolded. -Ø denotes zero ending.
| Present tense | Past tense | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | ||||
| First person | Second person | Third person | First & third person | Second person | |||
| Old English | -e | -e | -e | -en | -d-e | -d-e | -d-on |
| Middle English | -e | -e | -e | -e(n) | ? | ? | -d-e(n) |
| Early Modern English | -Ø | -Ø | -Ø | -Ø | -d | -d | -d |
| Modern English | -Ø | -Ø | -Ø | -Ø | |||
For comparison, the corresponding indicative endings are also given:
| Present tense | Past tense | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | ||||
| First person | Second person | Third person | First & third person | Second person | |||
| Old English | -e | -st | -eþ | -aþ | -d-e | -d-est | -d-on |
| Middle English | -e, -Ø | -st, -est | -th, -s | -e(n) | -d(e) | -d-st | -d-e(n) |
| Early Modern English | -Ø | -est, -st | -s, -th | -Ø | -d | -d-st | -d |
| Modern English | -Ø | -Ø | -s | -Ø | -d | -d | -d |
The irregular verb be has a larger number of distinct forms, these being derived from different stems (a case of suppletion). See the Wiktionary articles on be, am, is, were, etc.
As the tables show, in Early Modern English the past subjunctive was distinguishable from the past indicative not only in the verb to be (as in Modern English), but also in the informal second-person singular (thou form) of all verbs. For example: indicative thou sattest, but subjunctive thou sat. The -(e)st ending was also absent in principle in the present subjunctive, although it was sometimes nonetheless added; for example, thou beest appears frequently as a present subjunctive in the works of Shakespeare and some of his contemporaries.
Read more about this topic: English Subjunctive
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