4.  Exhortations:  [Sing we the song of freedom].

5.  A concession,—­supposed, not given as a fact:  [Though he be my enemy, I shall pity him].

6.  A possibility:  [We fear lest he be too late].

The tenses of the subjunctive require especial notice.  In conditional clauses, the present refers either to present or future time:  [Though the earth be removed, we shall not fear].

The preterite refers to present time.  It implies that the supposed case is not a fact:  [If he were here, I should be much pleased].

The pluperfect subjunctive expresses a false supposition in past time:  [If you had been here, this would not have happened].

The phrases with may, might, can, must, could, would, and should are sometimes called the potential mode, but the constructions all fall within either the indicative or the subjunctive uses, and a fourth mode is only an incumbrance.

+65.  The Imperative Mode.+—­The imperative is the mode of command and entreaty.  It has but one form for both singular and plural, and but one tense,—­the present.  It has but one person,—­the second.  The subject is usually omitted.  The case of direct address, frequently used with the imperative, should not be confused with the subject.  In, “John, hold my books,” the subject is you, understood.  Were John the subject, the verb must be holds. John is, here, a compellative, or vocative.

+66.  Voice.+—­Verbs are said to be in the active voice when they represent the subject as acting, and in the passive voice when they represent the subject as being acted upon.  Intransitive verbs, from their very nature, have no passive voice.  Transitive verbs may have both voices, for they may represent the subject either as acting or as being acted upon.

The direct object in the active voice generally becomes the subject in the passive; if the subject of the active appears in the passive, it is the object of the preposition by:  [My dog loves me (active).  I am loved by my dog (passive)].

Verbs of calling, naming, making, and thinking may take two objects referring to the same person or thing.  The first of these is the direct object and the second is called the objective complement:  [John called him a coward].  The objective complement becomes an attribute complement when the verb is changed from the active to the passive voice:  [He was called a coward by John].

Certain verbs take both a direct and an indirect object in the active:  [John paid him nine dollars].  If the indirect object becomes the subject in the passive voice, the direct object is known as the retained object: [He was paid nine dollars by John].

+67.  Infinitives.+—­The infinitive form of the verb is often called a verbal noun, because it partakes of the nature both of the verb and of the noun.  It is distinguished from the finite, or true, verb because it does not make an assertion, and yet it assumes one.  While it has the modifiers and complements of a verb, it at the same time has the uses of a noun.