Subjunctives
What they are and what they do
Welcome back to bambasbat! Today’s topic is subjunctives. You can have studied Latin for years and still not fully understand what a subjunctive is. Let me fix that today.
Our first question is:
What are subjunctives?
Well, to understand this, you need to know that there are five changeable parts of a verb.
Person: first person, I, second person, you, third person, he, she, it.
Number: because I can have singular first person, I, or plural first person, we.
Tense: present, past, future.
Voice: active or passive. Am I doing the verb, or is the verb being done to me?
Mood, and this is what we're going to be looking at today.
Moods
There are three in Latin.
Indicative: These are used for facts, things that have happened or are happening or will definitely happen.
I walked to the shop.
I am walking to the shop.
I will walk to the shop.
Imperatives: These are commands
Walk!
Get up.
Speak.
Subjunctives: They're sort of like potentials.
We should walk to the shop.
Could we walk to the shop?
You went to the shop so that you might buy food.
How are they used?
So in Latin, subjunctives are used in several different ways. But there are two main categories. There are main clauses and there are subordinate clauses.
We're going to look at main clauses first.
Subjunctives in Main Clauses
Now, a subjunctive can be used in a lot of different ways in a main clause.
iussive subjunctive. This is like a gentle order: “let them leave”. “May he perish”
deliberative subjunctive. “What should we do?” “When might you come?”
These are like questions, but they're very different from direct questions and indirect questions (which we'll get to in a minute)
“What should we do?” is different to “what can I do” or “what will I do?” This is almost like a potential future. What might I do in the future?
potential subjunctives: “You could win.” And “I might attend”.
It's again something that might happen in the future, but you're not sure yet.
optative subjunctives. “I wish you would come”. “He hoped they would lose”.
These are wishes or hopes for the future, and are therefore not facts. And therefore you would use a subjunctive.
So they're my uses of subjunctives in main clauses, but there are also subordinate clauses in Latin that use the subjunctive.
Subjunctives in Subordinate Clauses
purpose clause. This shows the purpose of the main action. “I went to the shop in order to buy a book”. To buy would be in the subjective.
result clauses. “I ran so fast that I won the race”. I won would be in the subjunctive. The main clause is I ran fast.
cum clauses, which means “when”. So “When I am in Rome, I go to this shop”.
I'm not in Rome currently, but when I am…, so that's a sort of potential again.
indirect questions. “I asked where we were going”.
The question is, where are we going? But when I am reporting that question, I asked where we were going. I have to use the subjunctive in Latin.
conditional clauses. “If I were to see you, I would be happy”. “If I had gone to Rome, I would have seen the Colosseum”.
In each of those sentences, both of the verbs would be in the subjunctive, because they both follow a condition.
So these are the reasons that I might see a subjunctive in Latin.
Not so hard after all!
I hope that's been a helpful rundown of what subjunctives actually are. It's something that really stresses students out, because it sounds so different, but really, it's actually quite simple once you get your head around it. And they're super easy to spot in Latin. So don't worry about that.
And that's all there really is to what subjunctives are. I hope it's been useful. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments and I'll see you next time on bambasbat.