In this book, Francis James develops his theory that the Englishsubjunctive has one meaning. Explaining how modality expresses therelation between a representation and what is represented, Jamescompares the subjunctive to a 'blueprint,' a plan of what thearchitect intends the world to match, and the indicative to anartist's sketch of the same building, a 'record' to matchthe world. The subjunctive thus signifies the practicalworld-to-match-words modality, and the indicative, the theoreticalwords-to-match-world modality. In individual chapters, the author gives a unified account ofcurrent and earlier uses of the present and past subjunctive andcomments on how historical changes have affected the syntax of themoods. He extends his argument to demonstrate how the theory ofmodality can be applied to other modal forms in English and to moods inother languages.