This is relatively minor point, but I encountered an interesting distinction in class the other day with the French subjunctive. A verb mood (not tense) that is rarely discussed in the English language, it is used to "express a wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred." (Thanks, Wikipedia.) Take the following sentence, for example:
The best director that I know is Martin Scorsese.
Le meilleur réalisateur que je sache est Martin Scorsese.
Here, the verb "sache" is in the subjunctive mood of "savoir," or "to know." This is because I am expressing a judgment about Martin Scorsese as the best director I know. However, the same sentence can also be translated with the indicative mood, and the resulting meaning is quite different:
The best director that I know is Martin Scorsese.
Le meilleur réalisateur que je sais est Martin Scorsese.
In this version, the verb "sais" is in the indicative mood. What does this mean, then? By choosing to not use the subjunctive here, the sentence takes on a much more presumptuous tone. Rather than expressing an opinion or judgment about the best director one knows, it is asserting an objective truth on the topic. This sentence, then, may very well be followed by an argument as to why Martin Scorsese is such a wonderful director.
The larger point here is the amazing subtelty of language, that one can express this kind of intellectual arrogance with simply a different verb in one language, but not in another. If one takes language to be a means of expression of a people--an expression of Hegel's zeitgeist--it becomes a very fascinating study.
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