I'm against the idea that more nuclear facilities BE built.

nekocat

先輩

3 Apr 2007

265

11

• 2 Jul 2007

• #1

I'm against the idea that more nuclear facilities be built.

Click to expand...

Hi. Do you think this "be" is OK? Does it always have to be "are"?

 

G

Geostigma

Sempai

21 Jun 2007

320

15

• 2 Jul 2007

• #2

If I were saying this sentence (and this is just me), I would say "I'm against the idea of having more nuclear facilities built." I think it sounds a bit more natural to the ear. But i'm pretty sure you could use either be or are in that situation. Might want a second opinion though.

 

bakaKanadajin

先輩

30 Apr 2007

1,173

84

• 2 Jul 2007

• #3

I'm not good with my grammatical definitions but I believe this is an example of reported speech. Maybe someone else can correct me. The validity of the 'be' in this case follows from the idea that the facility is not yet built and will be built in the future, also that its intransitive and the subject doing the building is not known, and from the 'that', which is necessary to report for a noun such as 'idea'.

Other examples:

I'm displeased with the notion that this man be promoted before me.
He's supportive of the idea that Taps be played on November 11th.

This is one of those situations where, if the phrase is dwelt on and thought about too much, even by a native speaker, it starts to sound odd, but in actual fact its quite common. If you added 'will' to the above examples the meaning stays the same but the grammar becomes more agreeable.

eg:
I'm displeased with the notion that this man will be promoted before me.
He's supportive of the idea that Taps will be played on November 11th.
I'm against the idea that more nuclear facilities will be built.

 

Sarapva

Midnight and Snowflake

25 Feb 2007

1,072

48

• 3 Jul 2007

• #4

Adding "will" in these sentences means that it's already decided that these things will happen, but without "will" it sounds like it's not definite yet. Another way of saying the first sentence is "I'm against the idea of building more nuclear facilities."

 

nekocat

先輩

3 Apr 2007

265

11

• 3 Jul 2007

• Thread starter
• #5

みなさんありがとにゃー！ここの常連回答者はほんとにきちんと教えてくださるので助かります！
暇ができたら日本語のほうでも貢献したいです。

 

pugtm

Jewish Samurai

21 Apr 2007

567

13

• 4 Jul 2007

• #6

be is a future tense whereas are built means they already have been or are being built.

 

JimmySeal

Tubthumper

5 Mar 2006

1,516

78

• 4 Jul 2007

• #7

This is called the subjunctive mood by the way, not future tense, and Sarapva is right. Using the future tense expresses that the decision is final, while the subjunctive conveys uncertainty.

Be is the most logical form here because the sentence starts out "I'm against..." If it started with something less strong, each form of "be" would produce a different meaning.

I dislike the idea that more nuclear facilities be built.
Someone has proposed building more facilities, and I don't like it.

I dislike the idea that more nuclear facilities will be built.
More facilities will be built, and I don't like that.

I dislike the idea that more nuclear facilities are built.
More facilities have been built now, and I don't like that.
(I guess "have been" would be more natural than "are" but they achieve about the same result)