employed is not the English participle. "I am broke" is a good example. Finally, there is the substitution of was for were and of am for be in the past and present of the subjunctive. In this last case American is in accord with the general movement of English, though somewhat more advanced. Be, in the Shakespearean form of "where be thy brothers?" was expelled from the present indicative two hundred years ago, and survives today only in dialect. And as it thus yielded to are in the indicative, it now seems destined to yield to am and is in the subjunctive. It remains, of course, in the future indicative: "I will be." In American its conjugation coalesces with that of am in the following manner:
Present I am Past Perfect I had of ben Present Perfect I bin (or ben) Future I will be Past I was Future Perfect (wanting)
And in the subjunction : Present If I am Past Perfect If I had of ben Past If I was
All signs of the subjunctive, indeed, seem to be disappearing from vulgar American. One never hears "if I were you," but always "if I was you." In the third person the -s is not dropped from the verb. One hears, not "if she go," but "if she goes." "If he be the man" is never heard; it is always "if he is." This war upon the forms of the subjunctive, of course, extends to the most formal English. "In Old English," says Bradley,[1] "the subjunctive played as important a part as in modern German, and was used in much the same way. Its inflection differed in several respects from that of the indicative. But the only formal trace of the old subjunctive still remaining, except the use of be and were, is the omission of the final s in the third person singular. And even this is rapidly dropping out of use…. Perhaps in another generation the subjunctive forms will have ceased to exist except in the single instance of were, which serves a useful function, although we manage to
- ↑ The Making of English, p. 53.
