# The subjunctive future in Romance languages



## Serafín33

The development of the subjunctive future can be found in Portuguese and Spanish, but what are other Romance languages that underwent the same process? 

Galician?


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## Angelo di fuoco

Galician, the most conservative of the Ibero-Romance languages. The subjunctive future stems from the Latin subjunctive imperfect and in its original function is to be found in some varieties of Sardinian.


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## Outsider

As far as I know, the future subjunctive is an exclusively Iberian development.


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## Serafín33

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Galician, the most conservative of the  Ibero-Romance languages.


This doesn't make Galician to appear  conservative though, as it's an innovation  —not something that Galician has conserved from Latin.





Outsider said:


> As far as I know, the future subjunctive is an exclusively Iberian development.


Then what are other Ibero-Romance languages that either conserve it, or that we know for sure that they had the subjunctive future in older times? 

Leonese, Asturian, Aragonese, Mirandese...?


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## berndf

Neqitan said:


> This doesn't make Galician to appear conservative though, as it's an innovation  —not something that Galician has conserved from Latin.


The Vulgar Latin future was a regularly constructed form with an auxiliary verb and there is no problem with putting e.g. _dicere habet_ (_he will say_) into imperfect subjective, _dicere haberet_ (_he would say_). See here, bottom of p.278.


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## Outsider

The Iberian future subjunctive is not derived from such a construct, though. It's a synthetic form of the verb (there is no indication that it was ever a compound), and indeed it is morphologically derivative of the perfect subjunctive of classical Latin (I differ from Angelo with regard to its origin).


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## berndf

Outsider said:


> The Iberian future subjunctive is not derived from such a construct, though. It's a synthetic form of the verb (there is no indication that it was ever a compound), and indeed it is morphologically derivative of the perfect subjunctive of classical Latin (I differ from Angelo with regard to its origin).


I see. Where would the _-r-_ come from, if it were derived from perfect?


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## CapnPrep

berndf said:


> I see. Where would the _-r-_ come from, if it were derived from perfect?


Time to review your Latin conjugation: 
perfect subjunctive
future perfect indicative

It seems that the forms and meanings of these two paradigms mixed together and became the future subjunctive in Ibero-Romance.


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## berndf

CapnPrep said:


> Time to review your Latin conjugation:
> perfect subjunctive
> future perfect indicative
> 
> It seems that the forms and meanings of these two paradigms mixed together and became the future subjunctive in Ibero-Romance.


Sorry, I was hooked on the perfect-"v" and forgot the following "r" (-*v*e*r*im).


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## Serafín33

CapnPrep said:


> Time to review your Latin conjugation:
> perfect subjunctive
> future perfect indicative
> 
> It seems that the forms and meanings of these two paradigms mixed together and became the future subjunctive in Ibero-Romance.


Penny (1992, 2002) argues the same thing:


			
				A History of the Spanish language said:
			
		

> The future subjunctive. [...] the Latin of Spain saw the creation of a future subjunctive (and later a future perfect subjunctive), which had no equivalent in Classical Latin, but which developed from Latin paradigms with other values. These paradigms were the future perfect indicative (CANTĀVĒRŌ) and the perfect subjunctive (CANTĀVERIM).






So… Are there any students of Asturian, etc. out there? :O


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## CapnPrep

Outsider said:


> As far as I know, the future subjunctive is an exclusively Iberian development.


Meyer-Lübke (II, §310) mentions the same forms in Old Romanian and in what he calls "Macedonian" (Aromanian).


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## Angelo di fuoco

Neqitan said:


> This doesn't make Galician to appear  conservative though, as it's an innovation  —not something that Galician has conserved from Latin.Then what are other Ibero-Romance languages that either conserve it, or that we know for sure that they had the subjunctive future in older times?
> 
> Leonese, Asturian, Aragonese, Mirandese...?



I don't know for sure about Aragonese (on the border to Catalan), but at least Leonese, Asturian and Mirandese (North-West of the peninsula, on the border of Galician-Portuguese and Castellano) should have known this tense in former times. However, as it is difficult to find information even about contemporary grammar of the smaller Romance languages (commonly classified as dialects), it is even more difficult to find information about their historical stages, but if Galician and Portuguese have conserved the future subjunctive in colloquial language and Spanish conserves it at least in legal jargon (so it continues to appear in dictionaries, although it is no longer taught in schools where Spanish is a foreign language), I think the other languages have known it.
I've found a grammar of Asturian. As far as I could deduce from the conjugation tables, the plusquamperfect indicative and the imperfect subjunctive have become indistinguishable morphologically and both have a complete set of forms in -ra, morphologically identical to Spanish "subjuntivo en -ra" and, historically, to the synthetic pluscuamperfect, and a complete set of forms in -re, morphologically identical to the Spanish "futuro del subjuntivo", although it is not clear whether the last is a debilitation of the postonic vowel (because this phenomenon appears also in other tenses - as alternative to the more conservative forms with postonic -a) or a remnant of the classic future subjunctive.


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## Outsider

CapnPrep said:


> Meyer-Lübke (II, §310) mentions the same forms in Old Romanian and in what he calls "Macedonian" (Aromanian).


The same forms, but he says nothing about the meaning. The same forms existed in classical Latin too, but we don't say that Latin had a future subjunctive.



Angelo di fuoco said:


> I've found a grammar of Asturian. As far as I could deduce from the conjugation tables, the plusquamperfect indicative and the imperfect subjunctive have become indistinguishable morphologically and both have a complete set of forms in -ra, morphologically identical to Spanish "subjuntivo en -ra" and, historically, to the synthetic pluscuamperfect, and a complete set of forms in -re, morphologically identical to the Spanish "futuro del subjuntivo", although it is not clear whether the last is a debilitation of the postonic vowel (because this phenomenon appears also in other tenses - as alternative to the more conservative forms with postonic -a) or a remnant of the classic future subjunctive.


Those are clearly phonetic variants, as indicated by the sign "~" between them, in that and in other tenses.


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## CapnPrep

Outsider said:


> The same forms, but he says nothing about the meaning. The same forms existed in classical Latin too, but we don't say that Latin had a future subjunctive.


He does say that the meaning/function was no longer that of a future perfect, and that these forms were limited to subordinate clauses. So, in response to Neqitan's original question, I would say that Eastern Romance deserves a closer look.


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## mjb1005

Angelo di fuoco said:


> I don't know for sure about Aragonese (on the border to Catalan), but at least Leonese, Asturian and Mirandese (North-West of the peninsula, on the border of Galician-Portuguese and Castellano) should have known this tense in former times. However, as it is difficult to find information even about contemporary grammar of the smaller Romance languages (commonly classified as dialects), it is even more difficult to find information about their historical stages, but if Galician and Portuguese have conserved the future subjunctive in colloquial language and Spanish conserves it at least in legal jargon (so it continues to appear in dictionaries, although it is no longer taught in schools where Spanish is a foreign language), I think the other languages have known it.
> I've found a grammar of Asturian. As far as I could deduce from the conjugation tables, the plusquamperfect indicative and the imperfect subjunctive have become indistinguishable morphologically and both have a complete set of forms in -ra, morphologically identical to Spanish "subjuntivo en -ra" and, historically, to the synthetic pluscuamperfect, and a complete set of forms in -re, morphologically identical to the Spanish "futuro del subjuntivo", although it is not clear whether the last is a debilitation of the postonic vowel (because this phenomenon appears also in other tenses - as alternative to the more conservative forms with postonic -a) or a remnant of the classic future subjunctive.



The pluscuamperfect indicative and subjunctive from Latin were lost in the evolution of Spanish, and became the imperfect subjunctive (amar: amara, amase). Those forms were reintroduced as periphrastic forms in Spanish using the auxiliary "haber" and past participle, and for that reason we now have pluscuamperfect indicative (amar: había amado) and pluscuamperfect subjunctive (amar: hubiera/hubiese amado). Interesting enough, Asturian never lost it's pluscuamperfect indicative, and for that reason the equivalent to the Spanish (amar: amara, había amado, hubiera/hubiese amado) all would be "amara/amare", and the speaker must rely on the context to dermine the mood and tense.


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## Angelo di fuoco

It is not entirely correct to say that both synthetic pluperfect indicative and subjunctive _were lost_ and became other forms.
First, in Medieval Spanish the former Latin pluperfect assumed several functions:
1) synthetic pluperfect
2) optative or conditional mood (condicional simple) 
3) imperfect of the subjunctive mood (passing from the conditional main clause to the subordinate

We can find all three functions in (relatively) contemporary Spanish, albeit reduced to a few verbs (quisiera, hubiera) or rather specific contexts (written language, especially journalistic texts or imitations of archaic language).
Additionally, in contemporary Spanish one can sometimes find the -ra forms as a generic past tense (instead of both pretérito pluscuamperfecto & pretérito indefinido, or maybe even imperfecto), although the Real Academia censures this usage.

It is equally wrong to say the lost forms were _reintroduced_ as periphrastic forms. At least for the pluperfect, the synthetic and analytical forms coexisted (even coexist, in different frequency) for centuries: the shift in function from synthetic pluperfect indicative to conditional or subjunctive imperfect went on gradually and the new functions prevailed only around 1500 (I don't have the precise date right now).

As for the synthetic pluperfect subjunctive, I'd also assume that there was no "void" between the loss of the synthetic pluperfect subjunctive (due to the shift in function) and the function's recuperation via new synthetic forms, but that the process was a gradual one and the synthetic and analytical form coexisted during a long period, before the functional shift was complete.


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## mjb1005

Angelo di fuoco said:


> It is not entirely correct to say that both synthetic pluperfect indicative and subjunctive _were lost_ and became other forms.
> First, in Medieval Spanish the former Latin pluperfect assumed several functions:
> 1) synthetic pluperfect
> 2) optative or conditional mood (condicional simple)
> 3) imperfect of the subjunctive mood (passing from the conditional main clause to the subordinate
> 
> We can find all three functions in (relatively) contemporary Spanish, albeit reduced to a few verbs (quisiera, hubiera) or rather specific contexts (written language, especially journalistic texts or imitations of archaic language).
> Additionally, in contemporary Spanish one can sometimes find the -ra forms as a generic past tense (instead of both pretérito pluscuamperfecto & pretérito indefinido, or maybe even imperfecto), although the Real Academia censures this usage.
> 
> It is equally wrong to say the lost forms were _reintroduced_ as periphrastic forms. At least for the pluperfect, the synthetic and analytical forms coexisted (even coexist, in different frequency) for centuries: the shift in function from synthetic pluperfect indicative to conditional or subjunctive imperfect went on gradually and the new functions prevailed only around 1500 (I don't have the precise date right now).
> 
> As for the synthetic pluperfect subjunctive, I'd also assume that there was no "void" between the loss of the synthetic pluperfect subjunctive (due to the shift in function) and the function's recuperation via new synthetic forms, but that the process was a gradual one and the synthetic and analytical form coexisted during a long period, before the functional shift was complete.



Maybe I was a little overzealous in my response as it is a topic I have studied somewhat superficially, and I thank you for the corrections as blunt as they were. Would you at least be willing to provide me with your sources since your information is so specific? This way I will be able to increase my knowledge on the topic and be able to process it for myself.


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## Angelo di fuoco

My source is the Real Academia Española. About 12 years ago, when I was learning Spanish at highschool, I wondered why Spanish had two parallel form sets for the imperfect subjunctive and why my dictionary featured the future subjunctive (which my school grammar book didn't). My teacher couldn't give me an answer right away (though he later did, after some research), so I wrote to the Real Academia's consulting service (Departamiento de Consultas Lingüísticas) and asked my two questions (and got a qualified reply the next day).
Later, I studied Romance Languages and Spanish, so I've got some general knowledge about the evolution from Latin to the Romance languages. I also did some reading of older Spanish texts: first written texts like the "Nodicia de Kesos" and jarchas, "El cantar de Mío Cid", Modern Spanish literature through the centuries beginning with "La Celestina", about 1500, and up to contemporary authors. When I read literature, I always pay attention to the language. My personal impressions mirror the information I got from the Real Academia.
Right now I was reproducing the information from memory, so, once again, I'm sorry I cannot give you precise source.
My advice is: do the same thing as I did and ask the Real Academia's consulting service yourself (better in Spanish). They will give examples and cite their sources.


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## Nino83

And European Portuguese has conserved syntetic pluperfect indicative: _amara, amaras, amara, amáramos, (vocês, eles) amaram_.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Galician, too, with the difference that the 3rd person plural form of synthetic pluperfect indicative (amaram) is not identical with the pretérito indefinido 3rd person plural form (amarom), as in Portuguese.
Portuguese also has an analytic pluperfect, to be formed with both _ter_ and _haver_.


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## Penyafort

Catalan clearly, but Aragonese too, cannot really be placed in that so-called by linguists 'Ibero-Romance' group formed by Spanish, Asturian and Galician/Portuguese (which might be better called 'Atlanto-Iberian', 'West Iberian' or something similar, a group that certainly look quite conservative in many aspects). 

As far as I can tell, there is no subjunctive future used in either Catalan or Aragonese, but subjunctive pasts or indicative tenses for that purpose. Medieval Catalan and Aragonese used the indicative future instead.


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## Nino83

CapnPrep said:


> Meyer-Lübke (II, §310) mentions the same forms


I think Meyer-Lübke was right.
The "future subjunctive" in Portuguese is used only after some conjunctions, like _quando_ and _se_.
In Classical Latin, _quando/se_ + future perfect is used when we speak about something in the future, and these are the same cases where it is used in Portuguese.
_Cum hoc fecĕris, cum ama(vĕ)ris_ = _quando fizeres, quando amares_ (literally: when you'll have done it, when you'll have loved, in Latin)
_se hoc fecĕris, se ama(vĕ)ris_ = _se fizeres, se amares_ (literally: if you'll have done it, if you'll have loved, in Latin).
In other words, Portuguese _future "subjunctive"_ is used where other Romance languages use the _future indicative_, it's not a "real" subjunctive tense.
_Quando/se farai, amerai_, _quand/si tu feras, aimeras_ (future indicative).
This is confirmed by Spanish. _Cuando/si haces, amas_ (present indicative).
For example, it is not used in the normal _sequence of tenses_ in subordinate clauses with subjunctive mood.
_Non penso che sia, je ne pense pas qu'il soit_ (present subjunctive) =_ no pienso que sea_, _não penso que seja_ (present subjunctive)
_Non penso che sarà, je ne pense pas qu'il sera_ (future indicative) vs._ no pienso que sea_,_ não penso que seja_ (present subjunctive).
In other words, the Portuguese language mantained the Classical Latin future perfect after these conjunctions, _quando/se/até_ etc., with a similar meaning (future events) while in subordinate clauses, all Romance languages lack a true _future subjunctive_ tense, Italian and French use the _future indicative_ while Spanish and Portuguese the _present subjunctive_.

So, it is not an "innovation", it's a conservative feature.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Nino, your analysis is correct in morphological terms, when you say that the future subjunctive of the Ibero-Romance languages (it's not an exclusive feature of Galician and its daughter Portuguese, but is also present in Castilian) is no innovation, since it derives from the Latin future perfect. However, the way it is used in Ibero-Romance languages is an innovation: there is both a futuro simple (imperfecto) and a futuro compuesto (perfecto) del subjuntivo in Galician, Portuguese and Spanish (not sure about Asturian). Spanish can use the future indicative the same way it is used in Portuguese, albeit in a restrained context (fixed expressions, legal texts). In all the other diaphasical contexts, it has fallen out of use, but you can find it in older literature and, occasionally, as a fixed expression, in more recent literature (e. g. Camilo José Cela: "al que leyere": to the one who'll be reading).
The uncertainty that the future and future perfect of subjunctive express is the one about when (and if) the hypothetical event will happen.
By the way, Italian also used to express (sometimes, not always) the uncertainty about the exact time of an event with the subjunctive mood: "come albeggi" (Salvadore Cammarano's libretto "Il trovatore") is subjunctive, the same way Spanish speakers could say today "como amanezca". For all I know about Latin (which is not much), this is  the continuation of the "cum + subjunctive" construction, only that in Latin the subjunctive mood was used automatically, whether the event had happened, was happening or had yet to happen, whereas in Romance the subjunctive mood was used only when it concerned future events.


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## Nino83

Angelo di fuoco said:


> this is the continuation of the "cum + subjunctive"


I'm not sure about it.
Meyer-Lübke says that the proof that it comes from the Latin future perfect indicative is not only the syntactic usage (cum + subjunctive was employed also in causal subordinate clauses, it doesn't happen in Portuguese and Spanish), but the fact that in Old Spanish the first person had the _-o_ ending (i.e _amavero_ > _amaro_). 
Said that it comes from the future perfect, it is used in the same environments, i.e temporal and conditional clauses.
What I'm pointing out is that this tense is called _future "subjunctive"_, but, actually it is not a subjunctive tense, because it is not used in subordinate clauses that require the subjunctive mood, i.e in the normal sequence of tenses (_consecutio temporum_).
The fact that Portuguese and Spanish later developed a _compound future "subjunctive"_ (i.e _quando/se tiver feito_) is a consequence of the loss of the _-ve-_ syllable, that changed _amaveris_ to _amaris_ and then _amares_, so it probably was interpreted like a simple tense.


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## Angelo di fuoco

The fact that "cum + subjunctive" (whichever: present, imperfect) isn't used in causal subordinate clauses in modern Portuguese and Spanish doesn't mean it was never used that way. I cannot give examples of this usage in Portuguese or Spanish right now, but I know for sure "cum + subjunctive" was used in late Medieval Catalan in causal/ conditional/ temporal clauses (e. g. "Tirant lo Blanc").

If you say that the future subjunctive is not used in subordinate clauses that require the subjunctive mood, I think you have a very particular view on what is and what is not a subordinate clause. After all, since the subjunctive cannot appear in main clauses, it can appear but in subordinate clauses. Temporal and conditional clauses are subordinate clauses just like object clauses.  
The facts are that in the _consecution temporum_ both present and future subjunctive are substituted by imperfect subjunctive. Idem for the compound tenses (pluperfect subjunctive).
To make it short: calling the future subjunctive of the Ibero-Romance languages subjunctive has its _raîson d'être_.


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## Nino83

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Temporal and conditional clauses are subordinate clauses just like object clauses.


Yes, they are, but they are not subordinate clause that *require* subjunctive mood, i.e in these clauses it is not *mandatory*, and the Ibero-Romance _future subjunctive_ replaces the indicative future tense in these clauses (causal ones included).

Latin didn't have a *true* future subjunctive and in sequence of tenses _perifrastica attiva_ was used.
_Nescis quid putaverim/putem/*putaturus sim*_.
_Perifrastica attiva_ was used also instead of the future indicative in order to indicate posteriority.
_Dico quod putavi/puto/putaturus sum_.

Now, when the subjunctive mood is *mandatory*, i.e with those subordinating conjunctions that require the subjunctive mood, no Romance language uses "future subjunctive" for future events, because it doesn't exsist.
_A meno che non abbia, à moins qu'il n'ait, a menos que él haya, a menos que ele tenha_... (present subjunctive)
_Non penso che sarà, je ne pense pas qu'il sera_ (future indicative) vs._ no pienso que sea_,_ não penso que seja_ (present subjunctive)

In other words, a true *future subjunctive* tense is not present neither in Latin nor in Romance languages.
The Ibero-Romance _future "subjunctive"_ derives from the Latin future perfect and it is used in temporal and conditional clauses for future events.


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## Quiviscumque

Of course, esteemed Nino83, "future subjunctive" is a misnomer. 

It is (was) not always "future"; it was used for the present, too: _Mostradnosla; que si ella fuere de tanta hermosura como significáis [...] _(Cervantes).

And it is not the same beast as the true subjuntive; it has (had) specific functions. So Andrés Bello (in 1847!) distinguished between the "hypotetical subjunctive" (amare) and the "common subjunctive" (ame, amara/amase). They can appear in different contexts.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Can you complete the Cervantes quotation? I wonder what tense he used in the main clause.
Even so, I think we can go for the future here, because the one who asks to see the girl has not seen her yet.


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## Nino83

Quiviscumque said:


> So Andrés Bello (in 1847!) distinguished between the "hypotetical subjunctive" (amare) and the "common subjunctive" (ame, amara/amase). They can appear in different contexts.


Thank you very much for the info, Quiviscumque 


Angelo di fuoco said:


> Can you complete the Cervantes quotation?


«No sabemos quien sea esa buena señora que decís: mostrádnosla; que *si ella fuere* de tanta hermosura como significáis, de buena gana y sin apremio alguno *confesaremos* la verdad» (Cervantes).
There is a future indicative in apodosis.
From the grammar of Bello:
http://www.contrastiva.it/baul_contrastivo/dati/sanvicente/contrastiva/Gramática española/Bello, Gramatica castellana.pdf


> 469 (221). Es preciso reconocer dos subjuntivos diversos: el que llamamos común, porque se extiende a una gran variedad de casos, y el de que ahora tratamos, al que *por su constante significado de condición o hipótesis* damos el nombre de hipotético.


Other examples:


> «Si el cielo *diere* fuerzas para tanto, *Cantaré* aquí, y escribiré entre flores De Tirsis y Damón el dulce canto».
> Dé no se puede sustituir a diere, como no se podría sustituir diere a dé variando así el ejemplo:
> «Pido al cielo que fuerzas para tanto Me *dé*, y escribiré sobre estas flores De Tirsis y Damón el dulce canto».
> Cuando la hipótesis no es anunciada por el condicional si, es siempre posible la sustitución del subjuntivo común al hipotético
> «Como el cielo *dé* fuerzas para tanto, *Cantaré* aquí...».
> «En lo que *tocare* a defender mi persona, no *tendré* mucha cuenta con esas leyes, pues lasdivinas y humanas permiten que cada uno se defienda de quienquisiereagraviarle» (Cervantes).
> Pudo decirse toque y quiera en lugar de tocare y quisiere.


Also in these examples, there is a future indicative in apodosis.


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## Angelo di fuoco

That's what I expected: future indicative in the apodosis.
However, I'm not little surprises that Bello says here:



> Cuando la hipótesis no es anunciada por el condicional si, es siempre posible la sustitución del subjuntivo común al hipotético
> «Como el cielo *dé* fuerzas para tanto, *Cantaré* aquí...».
> «En lo que *tocare* a defender mi persona, no *tendré* mucha cuenta con esas leyes, pues lasdivinas y humanas permiten que cada uno se defienda de quienquisiereagraviarle» (Cervantes).
> Pudo decirse toque y quiera en lugar de tocare y quisiere.



"Como + subjuntivo" could be (in my opinion), a remnant of the Latin "cum + conjunctive": I'd expect only «como el cielo diere fuerzas para tanto» to be correct. The comment to the second example, for me, is downright strange.
However, I don't have any corpus to verify nor have I read enough Siglo de Oro literature to prove Bello wrong.


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