What the FUCK is the subjunctive

I get that it can be a sort of conditional like
>if it be now, ’tis not to come
and
>it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish,
but then I'm expected to believe that it's some kind of imperative too, like
>let there be light
and
>long live the king
so basically I'm asking, what the fuck. Where is the commonality between these uses that makes them all "the subjunctive" and not like four different tenses/moods. Thanks
t. /sci/ user

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anglos being jealous of french so they act like subjunctive exists in english as well, when it doesn't.

>The subjunctive mood, such as "She suggests that he speak English", contrasts with the indicative mood, which is used for statements of fact, such as "He speaks English".
lmfaoo what?

It's when ebonics be inserted mid english sentence at random.

>subjunctive
>english
sorry user but this tense i rarely used in english
t.french/dutch speaker

learn a proper language monolingual cuck

What is this autism, you aren't special you fucking frogs

bump

Think of it as things that follow THAT. I wish THAT I were a duck, I hope THAT she comes. In your examples think of them slightly reworded: if it be now, THAT it is not to come, I command THAT there be light, THAT the king may live long.
The commonality is the conditional/hypothetical mood.

It’s neither a conditional or an imperative. It’s a mood. ‘Is’ in the subjunctive is ‘be’ instead. When you make a certain kind of conditional it is grammatical to use the the subjunctive rather than indicative. Likewise with that sort of third person command.
But it’s hardly a thing in english anyway, as a learner of english it’s not important you can live without it easily

>if it be now, THAT it is not to come
but the subjunctive is the "be" not the "come" or "is"

alright I read that one too quickly, just make it "if THAT it be now"
Basically the only time it matters in English is that you say "I wish I were king" instead of "I wish I was king," since "were" is the subjunctive conjugation.

This doesn't answer the question at all. What's the common thread between the conditional thing and the command thing, to make them both "subjunctive" and not two different things?
>that
I think these are called subordinate clauses. Anyway it's neither necessary (you can't fit "that" into "if it be now") nor sufficient (no subjunctive in "I know I am happy") so I think this is not the correct answer.

>you aren't special
Hättest du denken können, würdest dann aber irren.

not even a frog, french is my second language. don't get butthurt because a tense got erased from your bastard native language.

Basically, it's something that may or may not be. In Spanish, you would say something like "espero que vayas conmigo" to say "i hope that you go with me", whereas you would say "vas conmigo" to say "you go with me". Vayas is the subjunctive, and vas is the imperative. See pic related for conditions.

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And for your examples:
>let there be light
not saying that factually light will exist, but rather making a wish that comes true (yes, that's how that was supposed to be read)
>long live the king
not saying that the king will live long, rather wishing that the king live long. Neither is imperative, all subjunctive.

It does answer it though. OP said how can it be both a conditional and an imperative. It’s not either.
The question of why there are these morphological forms which are used in certain syntactic structures and not others (the phenomena grammarians would describe through ‘rules’ for the subjunctive) is one that historical linguistics has to answer.
No-one just created the language with a fully formed ‘sunjunctive mood’ that has some unity of concept and whose applications all share properties apparent at a glance.

To add a more direct response: there is no common thread between the examples so far as concepts go. What they share is a morphological form characteristic of a mood.

>why are bats and birds the same, you ask?
>it's not due to anatomy, and certainly not to behavior! do not be silly
>no, it's due to the inherent bird-ness of bats, and bat-ness of birds

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the evolution of grammar is much more arbitrary than biological evolution, which is constantly whittled by natural selection.

Sub-junctive means something along the lines of 'related to', 'depending on' etc. It's quite broad, but it's not the same as 'coordinate to', so this user has it right.
You use subjunctive when there HAS to be other main proposition, upon which the one with the subjunctive depends. However the main one can be only implied and not actually phrased; it's the case when you say "let there be light", since something like a wish or an injunction is implied.