# Si + what tense - and why not subjonctif



## gardian

In correct English, in Spanish, in Portuguese, in German we use the subjunctive with If clauses.

But not ever in French, apparently, despite its links to 3 of the above 5 languages.
Si/se has much the same meaning in French, Spanish and Portuguese.
Suppositions/possibilities are introduced by it.
But for this type of supposition, the subjunctive is never to be used . . . 


Can anyone versed in the historical development of the French language explain why it has evolved like so ?

Please do not reply if all you really have to say on this is "that's the French language" or something to that effect.
All languages are in some way social and cultural evolutions and their quirks can usually be explained by those knowledgeable on them.


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## Lacuzon

Hi,

Take a look at here : http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=909469

Nowadays, l'imparfait de l'indicatif is used instead of l'imparfait du subjonctif.


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## sokol

Moderator note:

French grammar rules can be easily looked up in grammar books; for this reason *please concentrate on the historical dimension* of this thread (which has been moved from French Grammar) - the development of French use, and why it is different from other Germanic and Romance languages.

Thank you!
Cheers
sokol
Moderator EHL


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## aerach

"Can anyone versed in the historical development of the French language explain *why* it has evolved like so ?"

It is rarely possible to explain scientifically and comprehensively the causes of linguistic changes.
In this particular case, the French subjunctive still exists (elsewhere) and is still very much in use, which means that its use vis-à-vis the other tenses/moods has only _shifted_, and I doubt anyone will be able to answer your question.

Now, you can ask "*how?*"
Someone with the knowledge might then take the time to explain _*when*_ and *where* the change starting occurring.


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## brian

If you consider the fact that even in many dialects of English, the imperfect subjunctive (_If I *were*..._) is no longer used, you might well argue that it's natural linguistic evolution for the subjunctive to be replaced by the indicative there. (Only French did it first, English hasn't completely done it yet, and Italian, etc. haven't begun yet.)

Likewise, there are constructions other than _if_-clauses in which the indicative is now being used. Not only in English (_I wish I *was*_ instead of *were*), but also in Italian and French (after certain verbs, the subjunctive is optional, often conveying a feeling of more uncertainty/remote possibility).

Then there are inter-dialectal differences. For example, American _require that it *be*_ versus British *should be*.

Perhaps, then, it's a natural progression for language to substitute indicative for subjunctive, but there is a hierarchy of constructions in which it occurs: some occur more rapidly, others more slowly.

To give just one more example, in modern English _If I *were*_ is still considered more "correct" than _If I *was*_ (although the latter is very common, too), and yet _If I *be*_, which only several generations ago was perfectly grammatical, is now no longer used, except in certain set constructions (_If it *please* the court..._).


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## gardian

May I put forward a theory on this myself.

Firstly one might well ask why Spanish insists on the use of the subjunctive after* si* clauses, be it the present subjunctive or the imperfect subjunctive.

I think that the retention of the subjunctive in Spanish is due to the ambiguity involved in the word, _*si*_ -- which may mean either "*if*" or "*yes*".
In an accusational situation, anyone denying the accusation with words to the effect of *"If I had done it,  . . . ."* would not want to say this in Spanish as 
*
"Si yo lo he hecho, . . ."*

because the accuser could well hear this to mean

*"Yes, I have done it - "*

 and take him away immediately, not waiting to hear the rest of his story.
Hence the need to use a more non-commital verb tense with *si* in Spanish.

In contemporary French, _*Si *_meaning *yes* is used to affirm something asked in the negative.
Could it be that older French had a wider use of this word, _*si*_ ?
And with its declining use, the need for a disambiguating subjunctive became less pressing ?


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## brian

Italian uses the subjunctive in that example as well, and yet Italian _if_ is *se*, whereas _yes_ is *sì*. They are quite different.

(Likewise, English uses the subjunctive in _If I were_, and yet _if_ and _yes_ are completely different.)

Plus, the subjunctive in that example goes back at least as far as Latin (the pluperfect subjunctive would be used there), in which the ancestor of Spanish _if_, *si*, was still distinct from the ancestor of Spanish _yes_, *sic*.


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## gardian

Let's put some figures on it.

Can any francophiles tell me when (at least the century) 
the _*si*_ clause allowed an indicative or imperfect verb to 
follow it ?


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## jmx

gardian said:


> I think that the retention of the subjunctive in Spanish is due to the ambiguity involved in the word, _*si*_ -- which may mean either "*if*" or "*yes*".
> In an accusational situation, anyone denying the accusation with words to the effect of *"If I had done it, . . . ."* would not want to say this in Spanish as
> 
> _*"Si yo lo he hecho, . . ."*_
> 
> because the accuser could well hear this to mean
> 
> *"Yes, I have done it - "*


I don't understand your point. "Si yo lo he hecho ..." is a normal sentence, meaning "If I have done it ..." 

Notice also that "si" (if) and "sí" (yes) are not homophones, because the first one is an unstressed word, while the second one is stressed.


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## gardian

But the word is just one syllable.
So *sí *sounds the same as *si*.
Or at least that is what I learned from my Spanish master.
The accent only distinguishes the two meanings in written Spanish.


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## jmx

gardian said:


> But the word is just one syllable.
> So *sí *sounds the same as *si*.
> Or at least that is what I learned from my Spanish master.
> The accent only distinguishes the two meanings in written Spanish.


I'm not speaking about writing but about pronunciation. The difference stressed/unstressed is, if I'm well informed, the one that exists between "this store" and "the store" (though the vowel in 'the' is also somewhat different).


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## brian

In Italian, _if I had done it _would be:

_se (io) lo avessi fatto, ..._

The word for _if_, _*se*_, is totally different from _yes_, *sì*, and yet the auxiliary, _avessi_, is nonetheless in the imperfect subjunctive.

Regardless of whether Spanish _si_ and _sí_ are homophones, if Italian (in which _se_ and _sì_ are clearly different) still uses the subjunctive, why would you wish to argue that the reason Spanish uses the subjunctive has anything to do with the two being homophones, when that's clearly not the case in Italian (or Latin, or English)?

Ideally, the subjunctive uses in both languages ought to stem from the same source.


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## gardian

But here there is only 1 syllable.
So the existence of the accent is "academic" to the ear.

So : _*"Sí, yo lo he hecho -"*_

could be heard as either*

                  "Yes, I have done it."* 

      or *

                 "If I have done it -"*


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## brian

The other problem with the homophony argument is that, if the subjunctive were indeed used to disambiguate sentences containing _si_ from those containing _sí_, then shouldn't the subjunctive be used in every _si_-clause? Yet this is not the case.

A sentence (in Spanish) like

_If I did/have done anything to offend you, then I apologize._

will have the indicative for the auxiliary. But a sentence like

_If I (ever) did anything to offend you, then I would apologize._

will have the subjunctive for the auxiliary - right?

(This is not to mention present-tense conditionals like _If you build it, they will come_ and so forth.)


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## jmx

As a general rule, "Sí, yo lo he hecho ..." and "Si yo lo he hecho ..." don't sound the same. The intonational pattern is different, and that is related to the stressed/unstressed nature of the first word.


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## gardian

Yes, Brian.
That is what my grammar says too.
Si + subj. when the "then" clause uses the conditional.

But in the first case, one is almost acknowledging that one could well  
have done something -  even inadvertently - so that one is risking 
nothing by the ambiguity.


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## gardian

<< As a general rule, "Sí, yo lo he hecho ..." and "Si yo lo he hecho  ..." don't sound the same. The intonational pattern is different, and  that is related to the stressed/unstressed nature of the first word.>>

This might not stand up well in court.

But we are going away from the main question.
Has French ever had a subjunctive in si clauses ?
If yes, when did it stop ?
And if never, why not ?


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## CapnPrep

gardian said:


> Can any francophiles tell me when (at least the century)
> the _*si*_ clause allowed an indicative or imperfect verb to
> follow it ?


 In every century, just like in all the other languages you mentioned above.



gardian said:


> Has French ever had a subjunctive in si clauses ?


Yes.


> If yes, when did it stop ?


It has not stopped, if you count the _conditionnel passé 2e forme_ as a subjunctive (since it looks exactly like the pluperfect subjunctive). But I think you are wondering when French stopped using the imperfect subjunctive in _si_-clauses. That was in the 17th century (early classical French).


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## gardian

CapnPrep says :

<< But I think you are wondering when French stopped using the imperfect subjunctive in _si_-clauses. That was in the 17th century (early classical French). >>

Do you know why it stopped (or began to be stopped) at this time ?


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## hadronic

The question is also : why does Spanish have SI + subj, THEN + conditional, where historically, Latin has conditional in both clauses ?


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## CapnPrep

gardian said:


> Do you know why it stopped (or began to be stopped) at this time ?


No. I don't think this change has been satisfactorily explained.



hadronic said:


> The question is also : why does Spanish have SI + subj, THEN + conditional, where historically, Latin has conditional in both clauses ?


Latin had no conditional. Historically, the subjunctive was used in both clauses in contrary-to-fact conditional sentences.


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## hadronic

Sorry, I meant "while Latin had subjunctive in both clauses".


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## gardian

*


CapnPrep said:



			No. I don't think this change has been satisfactorily explained.
		
Click to expand...

*
Well, do you know if the changes made to French at the beginning of the era of Modern Classical French were deliberate and considered by those formal authorities of that time for the French language ?
Or were they simply a formalisation of changes that were already happening "on the ground" , i.e. in spoken French by the then middle classes ?

Had the changes anything to do with concurrent social changes in France at that period ?

Was any rationale applied to these changes by scholars of the French language in the years subsequent to their adoption ?


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## CapnPrep

gardian said:


> Well, do you know if the changes made to French at the beginning of the era of Modern Classical French were deliberate and considered by those formal authorities of that time for the French language ?


No, this seems to have been a spontaneous change that began well before the appearance of the earliest grammars and other normative texts.



> Had the changes anything to do with concurrent social changes in France at that period ?


Highly unlikely. (Well, it depends what you mean exactly, but… highly unlikely.)



> Was any rationale applied to these changes by scholars of the French language in the years subsequent to their adoption ?


Yes, there have been many hypotheses, but in my opinion nothing really adds up to a satisfying explanation (particularly if we keep in mind what happened and what didn't happen in the neighboring languages):


The imperfect subjunctive requires speakers to memorize an additional stem for 3rd group verbs (also used for the simple past).
The ending _-asse_ (for 1st group verbs) has pejorative associations in French.
The earlier replacement of the subjunctive by the conditional in the apodosis triggered the replacement of the subjunctive in the protasis by some kind of "modal harmony".
There was a general tendency to restrict the French subjunctive to dependent clauses, and then to a smaller and smaller subset of dependent clauses.
There was a general tendency to simplify the grammar of conditional sentences, and fewer verb forms were sufficient for making the remaining distinctions.


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## gardian

_No, this seems to have been a spontaneous change that began well before  the appearance of the earliest grammars and other normative texts.
_
But surely there were grammars published before the 1600s ?
If they could publish other works as readable books - or scrolls - then why not grammars ?

_Highly unlikely. (Well, it depends what you mean exactly, but… highly unlikely.)

_I mean the Revolution and social/economic changes preceding it._

The imperfect subjunctive requires speakers to memorize an additional stem for 3rd group verbs (also used for the simple past)._
Not much bother, this._

The ending __-asse (for 1st group verbs) has pejorative associations in French._

Pray tell us one !


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## CapnPrep

gardian said:


> But surely there were grammars published before the 1600s ?


The first full grammars appeared in the 1530s. It wasn't because of limitations in book-making technology, it was more a matter of intellectual attitudes towards vernacular languages. 



> I mean the Revolution and social/economic changes preceding it.


Much too late.



> _The imperfect subjunctive requires speakers to memorize an additional stem for 3rd group verbs (also used for the simple past).
> _Not much bother, this.


It's obviously still more bother than not memorizing an extra stem.



> _The ending -asse (for 1st group verbs) has pejorative associations in French.
> _
> Pray tell us one !


-asse


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## gardian

If this verb change for the Si clause occurred before the 1530s, then it may well be earlier than Modern Classical French -- maybe more a Middle French change.

Sounds like something that will have to be referred to the Académie Française.


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## OBrasilo

CapnPrep said:


> The first full grammars appeared in the 1530s. It wasn't because of limitations in book-making technology, it was more a matter of intellectual attitudes towards vernacular languages.
> 
> Much too late.
> 
> It's obviously still more bother than not memorizing an extra stem.
> 
> -asse


The pejorative _-asse_ is logical. It's because the French ending _-asse_ is a merge of two endings, which are still separate in other language, such as Italian. Italian has the _-sse_ for subjunctive, which is NOT pejorative, and _-accia_ (feminine)/_-accio_ (masculine), the pejorative ending, which is cognate with the french Pejorative version of _-asse_.


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