The vii^o7 chord is generally understood as having dominant function. Oxford Music Online, for example, defines the vii^o7 chord as functioning "like a dominant chord." While in most cases the vii^o7 does indeed act as a dominant, this paper examines several contexts in which the vii^o7 functions as subdominant.

The idea that a vii^o7 chord can have a subdominant function is not new. The earliest recognition of the subdominant features contained within vii^o7 is first encountered in Rameau's 1737 treatise, Génération harmonique, where Rameau explains the vii^o7 chord as a combination of dominant and subdominant harmonies: scale-degrees 7 and 2 from V, 4 and 6 from IV.

This paper explores examples of several characteristic voice-leading schemas where the vii^o7 functions clearly as a subdominant. Subdominant vii^o7s are found in the music of J. S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, Ferdinand David, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms, among others. Important to this paper is the general sense that these examples are not exceptions to the norm, but, indeed, seem suggestive of a more common type of vii^o7 that partakes in plagal motions, and thereby communicates subdominant function.

The expressive implications are important here, for plagal motions historically have been characterized as backwards looking (after Michael Klein), as presenting a kind of "unrequited" character (after Heather Platt), or as "other" (after Margaret Notley). To ascribe Dominant function to these vii^o7 chords is to miss their expressive value.