He was angry and demanded that I pay him immediately.
why there is ‘I pay’ after ‘demanded’? no change of tenses?
why not:
He was angry and demanded me to pay him immediately.
He was angry and demanded that I would pay him immediately.
He was angry and demanded that I paid him immediately.
Thank you
Because it’s the subjunctive.
He demanded that I/he/she/they pay.
Note that the verb “pay” retains its original form in all the cases above.
Other examples include:
He mandated/insisted/instructed/ordered that they be on time.
In all fairness, other than “demanded that I would pay him immediately”, they’re all acceptable sentences in the real world. To make the third one acceptable you would omit the “would”, which is exactly what the first sentence is.
Our Tort System is correct that ‘pay’ is subjunctive in your first sentence.
Your second sentence (with “demanded me to pay him”) does not strike me as natural at all. I would not use it.
Your third sentence would be better with ‘should’ rather than ‘would’, but even then, I doubt I would use it.
Your fourth sentence again uses subjunctive, but this time it’s the past subjunctive form. Personally, I would not use the past subjunctive in this sentence, however.
To me, your first sentence is by far the one most likely to be used. As far as I know, we Americans use the present subjunctive form somewhat more often than our British counterparts do. The present subjunctive form is commonly used in that-clauses following certain verbs and phrases. Some of those verbs are:
ask (that)
be determined (that)
demand (that)
emphasize (that)
insist (that)
move (that)
propose (that)
recommend (that)
request (that)
require (that)
suggest (that)
urge (that)
Example:
We strongly suggested that he see a doctor as soon as possible.
For additional info about the subjunctive, you can do a search of this site for other threads that discuss the subjunctive. Here is one that can be found that way:
From a UK point of view. I would be likely to use only the original sentence, as Esl_Expert indicates.
I may also use the past form (the last sentence) if recounting this event at a later time.
The others sound unnatural. I disagree with Jamie that ‘demanded me to pay him’ would be used at all.
Amy, I think use of the present subjunctive is still widespread in the UK.