3.4.5. Conjunctions that trigger the subjunctive

Simple conjunctions will be treated in Section 16.2. What follows here are certain conjunctions that will always be followed by the subjunctive. For example, affinché (“so that”) and benché (“even though”) will always be followed by a verb in the appropriate form of the subjunctive. E.g.,

Benché non faccia bel tempo, andiamo lo stesso.

Even though it’s not nice out, let’s go anyway.

Many of these conjunctions express a condition necessary for something else to be the case (or to not be the case). For example,

Farò finta di niente, purché non si ripeta.

I’ll pretend nothing happened, provided that it doesn’t happen again.

Following is a list of some of the most common subjunctive-triggering conjunctions:

a condizione che / purché                    on the condition that/as long as

a patto che                                           on the condition that

affinché / perché                                  so that

benché / sebbene*                               even though

nonostante/malgrado                          even though

per quanto                                           as much as

prima che                                            before

senza che                                             without

purché                                                 provided that

As is the general rule with the subjunctive, these conjunctions usually do not allow same-subject constructions, i.e., the subject in the main clause must be different from the subject in the following (subordinate) clause. E.g.,

Voglio arrivare prima che arrivino gli altri.

I want to get there before the others arrive.

*Some exceptions to this rule can be seen with conjunctions like sebbene and benché, i.e., these two conjunctions do allow for the subjunctive to be triggered in the dependent clause when you have the same subject in both the main clause and the dependent clause, e.g.,

Io credo che che sebbene io sia in grado di farlo, non dovrei.

I think that even though I am capable of doing it, I shouldn’t.

For more detail on this exception, see Section 16.2.2