What's the truth about the subjunctive and conditional statements, anyway?

Solution 1:

Conditions are not necessarily in the subjunctive mood in English, nor are sentences with doubt necessarily in the subjunctive. There was never a one-to-one connexion between mood and semantics in English (nor in most other languages).

However, the if clauses in hypothetical sentences are conventionally always in the past subjunctive in English. Hypothetical in this context means that what is described is counterfactual, not actually the case. This includes sentences like If I liked cheese, I would eat that (but I don't), and basically almost all other sentences with if [verb resembling past tense], (then) ... would...

An exception are sentences where the if clause is really about something in the past: if he was home until 8, that means the bullet must have been fired between 8 and 9.

Whether or not this would is subjunctive is I believe a matter of debate, but I would say would is a subjunctive unless it actually refers to the past, as in he said he would leave the country immediately.

In older English, non-hypothetical conditionals could also take the subjunctive mood, like #if this be the answer, then how shall we proceed? But notice that this is the present subjunctive, not the past subjunctive as in hypothetical conditionals.