this sort of subjunctive is pretty much limited to the following:
* requests (the boss has asked that we be here early next week)
* statements of importance (it is very important that you be on time)
* ordering or commanding someone else to do something (the boss demanded that we be on time)
patanjali.purpose wrote:Could you pls also check the correctness of following sentences:
a) Court ruled that Stephen be punished if he commits the crime again (CORRECT)
no. "ruled" is not a subjunctive situation (note that it doesn't fit any of the situations above).
b) Court ruled that Stephen should be punished if he commits the crime again (INCORRECT)
the combination of "ruled" and "should" is either nonsense or redundant, depending on how you view it.
if you view "should" in the sense of "they
think that this is what
should happen", then it's total nonsense, because it contradicts what "ruled" means.
you can use "would" or "will" here.
The court ruled that Stephen would be punished... -- if the whole thing, including the timeframe of the hypothetical punishment, is all in the past
The court ruled that Stephen will be punished... -- if stephen could still be punished in the future, even though the ruling itself was made in the past
c) Court ruled that the university collects students activity fees even if they object to particular activities (INCORRECT)
this sentence is not grammatically wrong, but it's nonsense.
in fact, the present tense is one of the most commonly used tenses -- maybe even
the most commonly used one -- with "ruled", because that's what courts do: they rule on what the law MEANS (present tense).
if their ruling has been overturned, or is now irrelevant for whatever reason, then this switches to the past tense. but under no circumstances can you use a subjunctive here.
the above sentence is nonsense because it's not something that a court can rule. in other words, a court can't make a ruling about what people actually
do.
another example:
the court ruled that ron eats cottage cheese every day --> this sentence is grammatically correct, but preposterous, for largely the same reason as the one above.
the court ruled that the company's discrimination against candidates from group X is unconstitutional --> this is a correct sentence, provided that the court's ruling is still relevant today.
d) Court ruled that the university collect students activity fees even if they object to particular activities (CORRECT)
nope. subjunctive is wrong here.
