# Latin reasons for subjunctives in principal clauses



## virgilio

Moderation Note:
This thread has been branched from here.  The topic of the current thread is, as the title bespeaks of, the reasons for Latin principal clauses to assume  subjunctive.  If an existing thread gives you ideas for a similar but different topic, please open a new thread (providing a back link above helps others trace your chain of thoughts   ).
Flaminius


Whodunit,
             Re :"_No llora como una mujer", _now, we really *do* need a subjunctive here! "no llores" - direct request, incidentally the *only* reason in Spanish for a main clause subjunctive, whereas Latin has three such reasons!
The queen concerned could have put it rather more delicately, I think, and even sung:
"Ay, ay, ay, ay, canta y no llores
porque cantando se alegran, cielito lindo, los corazones!"

Perhaps she wasn't in the mood to call the king "Cielito Lindo!", though.
Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Outsider

virgilio said:


> [...] incidentally the *only* reason in Spanish for a main clause subjunctive, whereas Latin has three such reasons!


You can also have a subjunctive in a main clause in Spanish to express a wish (jussive optative subjunctive), at least. _¡Viva Zapata!_


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## virgilio

Outsider,
            But what is a wish but a direct request? 
My Definition: *A direct request is any sentence which recommends a course of action*.

It's always a good idea, I find, to keep rules as general as possible. That's what rules are, after all - what happens "as a rule".
My definition includes within its scope what you call "wishes".
Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Outsider

Some languages have distinct verb forms for wishes (optative, not jussive; I made a mistake) and for requests (jussive). What were the other two functions of the subjunctive you were referring to, then?


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## virgilio

Outsider,
           Re:"Some languages have distinct verb forms for wishes". Of course they do but I was talking specifically about Spanish and Latin.
The other two Latin reasons for subjunctives in principal clauses are:
(1) the apodoses of hypothetical conditional sentences>
e.g.
si Metellum in foro vidissemus, salutavissemus

(2) Questions inviting requests (see definition above) as responses:
e.g.
Quid jam Ciceroni dicamus?

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Outsider

virgilio said:


> The other two Latin reasons for subjunctives in principal clauses are:
> (1) the apodoses of hypothetical conditional sentences>
> e.g.
> si Metellum in foro vidissemus, salutavissemus


I see. Indeed, most Romance languages won't use the subjunctive in that case, because they've developed the conditional for it. However, Spanish happens to be an exception, in that one of its subjunctives can be used as a conditional, as well. 



virgilio said:


> (2) Questions inviting requests (see definition above) as responses:
> e.g.
> Quid jam Ciceroni dicamus?


Sorry, but my knowledge of Latin is spotty. Could you provide a translation?


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## virgilio

Outsider,
            Yes, when you say " Spanish happens to be an exception, in that one of its subjunctives can be used as a conditional, as well", you could alternatively say that Spanish - which together with Portuguese must be joint firsts of the five principal "Roman" languages in closeness to the original Latin - has not yet completely abandoned its Latin history. Possibly the Moorish occupation of much of the Iberian peninsula may have had the effect of putting Iberian Latin into the 'freezer', so to speak for a few centuries.
Re:"Quid jam Ciceroni dicamus?"
What are we to say to Cicero now?

With best wishes
Virgilio


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## virgilio

Outsider,
            It has just occurred to me that what you said about the Spanish use of the imperfect subjunctive sometimes in place of a conditional in the apodosis of a hypothetical conditional sentence means that in saying that the direct request was the *only *reason for a main clause subjunctive in Spanish I had made a mistake. I had forgotten about this "Latinity" of modern Spanish. Thank you for the correction. Now there are *two* reasons for a subjunctive in a Spanish principal clause.
Does the same apply also to Portuguese or does that language always use a conditional in the apodosis of a hypothetical conditional sentence?

Muito obrigado
Virgilio


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## Outsider

virgilio said:


> Re:"Quid jam Ciceroni dicamus?"
> What are we to say to Cicero now?


Ah, yes. I'm not sure about Spanish, but Portuguese does have a similar construction. But you're right; it doesn't use the subjunctive. It's a periphrasis with the auxiliary verb in the present indicative.

O que havemos de dizer / vamos dizer ao Cícero agora?



virgilio said:


> It has just occurred to me that what you said about the Spanish use of the imperfect subjunctive sometimes in place of a conditional in the apodosis of a hypothetical conditional sentence means that in saying that the direct request was the *only *reason for a main clause subjunctive in Spanish I had made a mistake. I had forgotten about this "Latinity" of modern Spanish. Thank you for the correction. Now there are *two* reasons for a subjunctive in a Spanish principal clause.


It's possible that it is a survival of a Latin trait in Spanish, but I think we would need to look carefully at the history of this tense, to be sure. It could be a modern recreation.



virgilio said:


> Does the same apply also to Portuguese or does that language always use a conditional in the apodosis of a hypothetical conditional sentence?


When a conditional is called for in the apodosis, you cannot use a subjunctive form in Portuguese.


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## virgilio

Thank you, Outsider.
What a splendid place these forums are for learning things quickly!

Muito obrigado
Virgilio


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## Whodunit

Virgilio, to which of the three uses of the subjunctive would you group _Audiatur et altera pars_ (Hear the other side, too) or _Intret igitur!_ (So, he shall come in)?


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## virgilio

Whodunit,
             Assuming that they are both quoted in full, they are both examples of direct request - which is why I disagree with your translation of "intret igitur"
"Let him (her, it) come it" would be more accurate.
Your "(So, he shall come in)" would be taken as a direct statement by any English person.
In case you are interested, here are my definitions (for what they are worth) of the three types of sentence (international syntax):
(1)A *direct* *statement* is any sentence which gives information.
(2) A *direct request  *is any sentence which recommends a course of action
(3) A  *direct question* is any sentence which seeks as response either a direct statement (information-seeking question) or a direct request (advice-seeking question).

Latin direct questions indicate by the mood of the verb (indicative or subjunctive) whether they seek information (indicative) or advice (subjunctive). Quite neat really!

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Whodunit

virgilio said:


> Whodunit,
> Assuming that they are both quoted in full, they are both examples of direct request - which is why I disagree with your translation of "intret igitur"
> "Let him (her, it) come it" would be more accurate.
> Your "(So, he shall come in)" would be taken as a direct statement by any English person.


 
Well, let me see if I understood the two sentences in Latin correctly (the first one is a quotation, the second one I invented): In case you understand it (which I don't doubt at all), I'd translate the second Latin sentence into Old English as follows:

_Hē scyle þus incuman._

I have to use Old English here (German would also do it) to show you the subjunctive of _sculan_ (shall). Unfortunately, in Modern English, the subjunctive and indicative for _shall_ look the same, but in Old English, there was a difference between _hē sceal_ (German: _er soll_) and _hē scyle_ (German: _er solle_). Would you understand the Latin sentence the same way?



> Latin direct questions indicate by the mood of the verb (indicative or subjunctive) whether they seek information (indicative) or advice (subjunctive). Quite neat really!


 
Yes, I can imagine that it might often not be so clear which kind of direct question is meant, especially if the indicative looks the same as the subjunctive (_capiam_ = future indicative/present subjunctive).


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## virgilio

Whodunit,
             Well now, I suppose that was my fault. You see, when you offered your original translation is modern English "(So, he shall come in)", I sort of assumed that we were talking about modern English. If you were really talking about old English all the time.....! One is not a mind-reader, after all.
In view of the differences between old and modern English, which you mention, and the earlier similarities between the forerunner of  the verb "to shall" and the German "sollen", I suppose "intret igitur" could amount to "er (oder sie oder es) soll hereinkommen".
Your second - more interesting - comment about "to shall" ("in Modern English, the subjunctive and indicative for _shall_ look the same") is very similar my Konjunktivtheorie, namely that the term "subjunctive" should better describe a function of a verb rather than its form - the 'mode' in which it is used rather than the letters in which it is written.
  According to that theory, therefore, one could say that English has as many subjunctives as Latin - or any other language - but (as you have pointed out about "shall")-unlike Latin, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek and even to some extent German - it doesn't often bother to alter the spelling to indicate the change of function.
The problem you mention _in re_ future indicative and present subjunctive applies only to 1st person singular present subjunctive and it didn't seem to cause Latin speakers much anxiety.
After all, are Germans much confused by the - at least - two possible meanings of z.B:
"sagen wir"?
English people take the two meanings - and pronunciations - of "read" 'in their stride', so to speak.

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Whodunit

virgilio said:


> Whodunit,
> Well now, I suppose that was my fault. You see, when you offered your original translation is modern English "(So, he shall come in)", I sort of assumed that we were talking about modern English. If you were really talking about old English all the time.....! One is not a mind-reader, after all.


 
I wasn't! 

As I said, the Old English example was just to demonstrate how I understand the Latin. I could have written "He shall thusly come in", but that wouldn't look as subjunctive as the sentence I offered in Old English. I could have used the German translation "Er solle also eintreten" (sounds a bit old-fashioned), if that hadn't confused you as much! 



> In view of the differences between old and modern English, which you mention, and the earlier similarities between the forerunner of the verb "to shall" and the German "sollen", I suppose "intret igitur" could amount to "er (oder sie oder es) soll hereinkommen".


 
I offered my translation into German above, but yours is also correct.  The only problem I see in your version is that _soll_ looks like the indicative, but in Latin I intentionally used the subjunctive, which would be _solle_ for the 3rd singular present in German.



> Your second - more interesting - comment about "to shall" ("in Modern English, the subjunctive and indicative for _shall_ look the same") is very similar my Konjunktivtheorie, namely that the term "subjunctive" should better describe a function of a verb rather than its form - the 'mode' in which it is used rather than the letters in which it is written.
> According to that theory, therefore, one could say that English has as many subjunctives as Latin - or any other language - but (as you have pointed out about "shall")-unlike Latin, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek and even to some extent German - it doesn't often bother to alter the spelling to indicate the change of function.


 
I would add that - by the way, I agree with your thesis that English (and any other language) has as much subjunctives as Latin - we often don't recognize verb forms as subjunctive. To test it, we have to choose either an irregular verb* (like "to be") or an auxiliary - at least in German and English. Let's reagrd this example:

_I think that my friends act as usual._

Is _act_ an indicative or subjunctive here (let's exclude Latin here, because we would use an infinitive construction after _cogito_)? In German, we can't be sure either:

_Ich glaube, dass sich meine Freunde wie immer benehmen._

To test whether or not it is a subjunctive we are dealing with here, we must use another verb (let's take _to be_):

_I think that my friends be/are as usual._
_Ich glaube, dass meine Freunde wie immer sind/seien._

Now we can decide whether it is a subjunctive or indicative in _sich benehmen/act _above. This is at least how I analyze such sentences where I'm in doubt whether it is a subjunctive or indicative (in German).



> After all, are Germans much confused by the - at least - two possible meanings of z.B:
> "sagen wir"?


 
Are you alluding to indicative vs. subjunctive? _Sagen_ is like _sich benehmen_ above; if you want to know if it is a subjunctive, you'll have to choose another verb that has different forms for the indicative and subjunctive. We are not confused by the two possible meanings of such verbs, because the subjunctive of those verbs sounds out-dated and is rarely used in everyday life.



> English people take the two meanings - and pronunciations - of "read" 'in their stride', so to speak.


 
I think that's a bit different, because it can change the tense in English. _Sagen wir_ can only change the mood, which is not very important in German. Look at this examples in English and German:

The students read the boring book daily. (context should decide whether [red] or [ri:d])
Der Lehrer hat sich beschwert, wir sagen zu viel im Unterricht. (hypothesis: ... wir seien zu laut/fact: ... wir sind zu laut)


*I know there are no _irregular verbs_, grammatically/etymologically speaking, but _to be_ is an exception in most languages.


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## virgilio

Whodunit,
             If you had written ""He shall thusly come in", it would have been worse still. Where did you find "thusly"?

Re:"The students read the boring book daily. (context should decide whether [red] or [ri:d])"
But it doesn't at least not the context you quote. Both tenses are still possible. But my point is, it doesn't cause any real confusion for English people, any more than I suppose "sagen wir" does for German people. Here is an important lesson for theoretical philosophers. Test the thing out! Practice can often totally remove a difficulty which in theory seems insurmountable.
 I read (past tense) somewhere once that according to the laws of aerodynamics the bumble-bee (die Hummel) is incapable of flying. Fortunately this theory does not discourage the bee.

Virgilio


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## Whodunit

virgilio said:


> Whodunit,
> If you had written ""He shall thusly come in", it would have been worse still. Where did you find "thusly"?


 
Why would it have been wrong? _Thusly_ is a rather old-fashioned word for _thus_, but it's still in use, as far as I know.



> But it doesn't at least not the context you quote. Both tenses are still possible.


 
Yes, that's what I mean. Due to the lack of context, you don't know which tense is to use. However, if you know that I'm talking about school in general, it should be clear that the present tense is meant; otherwise I would have used another temporal adverb (like _last year_) or some verb like _used to_ to express a past action.



> But my point is, it doesn't cause any real confusion for English people, any more than I suppose "sagen wir" does for German people.


 
Sorry, but I don't see your point. Why is _sagen wir_ ambiguous?



> I read (past tense) somewhere once that according to the laws of aerodynamics the bumble-bee (die Hummel) is incapable of flying. Fortunately this theory does not discourage the bee.


 
Interesting theory.


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## virgilio

Whodunit,
             ""The students read the boring book daily." The tense of the verb "read" in this sentence is uncertain. It could be either present or past.

Can "sagen wir" not mean "let us say" as well as "we say" or "are we saying?"?

Re "thusly" you mustn't believe all you read in encyclopaedias! When you write English, it would make things much easier if you stuck to one period of English at a time. Someone may have used the word "thusly" in 1865 but any one who used it nowadays would be assumed to be attempting some sort of humour.

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## river

_Thusly_ is now a common and desirable alternative to _thus_ after a verb and before a colon, as in "running thusly: [in this way]" and "described thusly: [as follows]" Merriam-Webster Unabridged

..."its naturalness is more or less unquestioned in AmE. . .it is not now merely an ignorant or comic substitute for _thus_. . .it is a distinct adverb that is used in a distinct way. . ." _Fowler's Modern English Usage_

Not eveyone agrees, though. http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=93106


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## virgilio

river,
       Thank you for the quotations. The problem is that we now inhabit a democracy and so authoritarian views - including those expressed in dictionaries and encyclopedias - have become subject to individual speculation and criticism. Neverthless contributors to this forum are to be praised for their attempts to reinstate the _status quo ante_ by their admirably unswerving loyalty to certain recognised authorities.
Well done. We may yet survive this ochlocratic phase.
For me it's "thus" "in this way" "to this extent". I don't think that I could bring myself to say "thusly" without laughing.

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## virgilio

Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, to sum up, there are three - and only three - reasons for a subjunctive verb in the principal clause of any Latin sentence. They are:
(1) direct request (as defined in my earlier post above)
(2) question seeking a direct request as response.
(3) the apodosis of a hypothetical conditional sentence.

In (1) the subjunctive is only ever *present* tense
In (3) the subjunctive is either *imperfect* or *past perfect* tense
In (2) the subjunctive is *present* tense, although some writers occasionally use an *imperfect* subjunctive in a form of indirect question disguised as a direct question.

If any contributor would care either to add to or to subtract from these three, I would be very grateful for details.
Thank you
Virgilio


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## Whodunit

virgilio said:


> Whodunit,
> ""The students read the boring book daily." The tense of the verb "read" in this sentence is uncertain. It could be either present or past.


 
That's exactly what I wanted to say. Context has to decide which tense is used, and by context I mean a previous or subsequent sentence, not just the one I gave.



> Can "sagen wir" not mean "let us say" as well as "we say" or "are we saying?"?


 
Of course, it can. But they are all used differently and the translations depend on the use of the German _sagen wir_:

let us say:
Sagen wir ihm endlich mal, dass er uns nervt! (exclamation, statement, intonation falls)

we say:
Wann sagen wir es ihm? (whenever something like an adverb goes before the verb and the subject follows)

are we saying?
Sagen wir ihm endlich mal, dass er uns nervt? (question, rising intonation)



> Re "thusly" you mustn't believe all you read in encyclopaedias! When you write English, it would make things much easier if you stuck to one period of English at a time. Someone may have used the word "thusly" in 1865 but any one who used it nowadays would be assumed to be attempting some sort of humour.


 
I used it to sound a bit _older_, but obviously _thusly_ is just humorous, and I won't use it anymore.  Maybe it's like the German _nichtsdestotrotz_, which is a humorous form of _nichtsdestoweniger_, a word no one uses when speaking.


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## virgilio

Whodunit,
             So we agree, then. Three reasons.
Virgilio


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