http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3809

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001192.h...

The first link is by one of the authors of CGOTEL, and comes out strongly against calling that were-form subjunctive; the second link is by another syntactician, and is a little more ambivalent.

What follows is a mixture of (a) my understanding of some terminology and facts, and (b) my interpretation of the arguments:

"Subjunctive" is a label for a type of sentence mood, where "mood" has to do with the relationship between the sentence and reality. Subjunctive mood is usually, like indicative and imperative moods, marked on the verb. (In my mind, interrogative is also a mood, but it is usually marked on the sentence, not on the verb.) Indicative and imperative moods have fairly narrow commonly-agreed semantics, but subjunctive is more of a catchall (my second link above will warn of the danger of confusing syntactic terminology with semantics, but while they don't correspond perfectly, they are related). We can quickly note that "if I were a rich man", a counterfactual clause, easily fits into area that can be covered by a "subjunctive" mood in various languages.

It's widely agreed that the following construction in English should be called "subjunctive":

I ask that you be polite to him.

The subjunctive form of "be" is so distinct from any other finite form that it makes for good examples. Any time a finite verb can be realized as "be", we're comfortable calling it subjunctive ("be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread").

That construction is productive today and nicely applies to any english verb:

I'm going to have to ask that your son return my necklace.

The argument against calling "if I were a rich man" subjunctive makes the following points:

- It doesn't use the subjunctive form.

- It is not obviously related to any construction that does use a subjunctive form.

- Though it is obviously a special form, it only applies to a single verb, and even there it's not required (Zwicky, my second link, talks about this some more). This can raise questions about how much it's a "real phenomenon", vs how much it's basically just an archaism.

- In the past, subjunctive forms could appear in English conditionals, but they no longer do.

Zwicky will tell you (and this is a point that follows my own inclinations well) that as long as you've described the rules correctly, the names that you give to the rules ("subjunctive") are irrelevant. So in that sense, you can call any form you want "subjunctive", as long as you're willing to extend the description to every instance of an analogous form, which is easy with "if I were a rich man", as it is the only form of its kind.

- However, as the generally-agreed subjunctive is a living and useful phenomenon, and is unrelated to the were-form, it might be nice to give the were-form a name that won't confuse people.