Literary Subjunctive — Thinking Without Words
Grammar: Subjunctive
Free ESL grammar exercise on literary subjunctive themed around thinking without words. Printable worksheet from EnglishPlans.com.
What's on this worksheet
A Level 6 (proficiency) ESL grammar exercise on science, practising subjunctive. The worksheet has a short reading excerpt, a grammar reference and graded practice items.
From the reading
Long live that question, one is tempted to say — not because the answer is near, but because asking it keeps perception honest. Were Whorf alive today, he might concede that language is less the house of thought than its most talkative tenant. As it were.
Grammar: Subjunctive
- Literary subjunctive
- Long live the question. — subjunctive for rhetorical elevation or blessing
- Concessive /
- Though he be silent, his logic speaks. — formal, literary concession
Sample items
- Long ______ the debate — it has sharpened our understanding of the mind for a century.
- We must preserve these field recordings, lest the last traces of Pirahã ______ lost forever.
- ______ that as it may, synesthesia remains a poorly understood phenomenon in neuroscience.
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