13 June 2007
It’s not often that you get the finer points of Latin grammar debated in Congressional committee hearings, but this happened at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform meeting today. General Services Administration head Lurita Doan was testifying regarding allegations that she improperly pressured civil servants working for her to devote taxpayer resources to assist Republican candidates in the last election. The following exchange occurred:
Rep. John Yarmouth (D-KY): You talked about this statement that you made, “until extensive rehabilitation of their performance occurs, they will not be getting promoted and will not be getting bonuses or special awards or anything of that nature.” I have two questions. One is that you said sometimes you “have problem with tense” and […] I’m trying to get a handle on exactly where the issue of tense might relate to whether or not you actually were speculating about what you might do, what you may have in fact done, or what you were in the process of doing.
Doan: Well I thought I was using like a hortatory subjunctive, right there. In which…[she shrugs] [...]
Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD): I hope my mother is watching. She’s a Latin teacher and I’m just going to take issue with your citing of the hortatory subjunctive. The actual tense that was used in the statement about “will not be getting promoted” and so forth, that is just clearly the future tense. It’s not the future perfect or future pluperfect or anything of that nature. Actually, the best example of the use of hortatory subjunctive is the statement, “how can we help our candidates?”
Doan: No.
Sarbanes: Yes. The hortatory subjunctive is used when you are exhorting people to do something, which is exactly what that statement was. That was an exhortation in the subjunctive tense, not using the word “let’s” as its usually seen, but using this other construction.
Neither Doan nor Sarbanes can be crowned with grammatical laurels for this exchange. While Sarbanes is partially right in that the first statement is an example of future tense, but it is not simple future tense. Rather it is future conditional. The promotions, bonuses, and awards will be bestowed when the condition of rehabilitation of performance is fulfilled.
As for the hortatory subjunctive, English does not have one, rather it is a feature of Latin grammar. In English, the hortatory subjunctive is generally rendered as an imperative in first person plural. The question “how can we help our candidates” can be interpreted as an exhortation, and indeed it appears as if Doan used it as such, but it is a simple interrogatory, not subjunctive.
