Subjunctive “be” inversion

grammatical-rolesgrammaticalitysemanticssubject-verb-inversionsubjunctive-mood

Can i invert the protasis bellow :

If you not be, …

Into :

Be you not, …

Will it not —in an archaic sense— be mistaken for imperative and will it convey the same conditional notion?

Best Answer

This usage at one point existed in English but now mostly survives in fossilized phrases like "be that as it may" or "if need be." So I think you are not incorrect to say that if you are specifically aiming to write archaic English it is not wrong to use.

But to the second part of your question, yes, I do think this is likely to be mistaken for the imperative, because many, if not most, people are not familiar with this construction outside of the fossilized examples. You will have to judge how erudite your readership is before deciding whether to risk that.

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