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Can "wonder if" be followed by a subjunctive clause only?


In the book A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, I've noticed the use of the subjunctive mood after wonder if:



In truth, he had scarcely considered the mudmen at all, beyond eyeing Meera once or twice and wondering if she were still a maiden.



And again, later in the book:



He listened to the blasphemies and wondered if he were dying.



My (non-native) grammatical intuition makes me think this sounds really wrong. I would say "he wondered whether he was dying" and therefore also "he wondered if he was dying".


I would be tempted not to use the subjunctive with an if that can be replaced by whether, and to only use the subjunctive with an if that actually has a conditional value, for instance: "he wondered, if he were dying, why he was feeling so alive".


Also, I believe that using Martin's structure in the present tense may sound even more wrong: "he wonders if he be dying" (present subjunctive)...


So, am I right, or is it correct to use only a subjunctive clause after wonder if?



Answer



It is correct to use the subjunctive here, and not all that uncommon. Many native speakers would also use "was". It depends somewhat on personal, regional and stylistic factors. In speech or ordinary writing, generally either sounds natural. I suppose some might find the subjunctive to sound odd or old-fashioned, or the indicative to sound inelegant or uneducated. If you want to use what native speakers would consider the most strictly "correct", as in the context of a grammar test, then it might be a safer bet to use the subjunctive. Incidentally, the past subjunctive can also be used with "whether" in similar circumstances (hat tip to tchrist in comments).


Here's a Google ngram chart for "wonder if she were" and "wonder if he were". If you look through the citations, you can find examples of these phrases being used by other English writers in comparable contexts to the ones cited in the question.


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