As a mood, it's in the same category as the indicative or imperative. It only appears in four tenses: present, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect—there’s no future subjunctive. It can be used in the active or passive voice. It is most frequently used in subordinate clauses that convey purpose or result but is generally used to mark unreal or unknown verbal states. This chapter introduces the two most common tenses and uses of the subjunctive—we’ll see other uses in later chapters.
Good news! You don’t need to learn all that much new to form a verb in the subjunctive. Likewise, the best trick to know about identifying a subjunctive is that it pretty much looks normal, but its form is just a little different.
In the present tense, that little difference is a stem vowel change. You’ll take your normal, present stem, use the subjunctive stem vowels in the chart below, and add the endings -m,-s,-t,-mus,-tis,-nt (active) or -r,-ris,-tur,-mur,-mini,-ntur (passive).
There are lots of great mnemonics for remembering this vowel change: e.g. We fear a liar. or We eat a Fiat.
Even better news! To form the imperfect subjunctive, you simply take the present active infinitive (i.e. the second principal part of the verb) and add the same endings, -m, -s ,-t, -mus, -tis, -nt (active); or -r, -ris, -tur, -mur, -mini, -ntur (passive).
We’ll learn the perfect and pluperfect tenses next week (and there is no future or future perfect subjunctive).
These mostly follow the same patterns as regular verbs, but you should be sure to learn the present and imperfect subjunctive forms of the very common verb sum, esse, fui:
A purpose clause is a secondary verbal clause that shows the intention of the main verb. They can be positive or negative (I did something so that something may happen. / I did something so that something might not happen.) Here are some examples in English:
I bought flour so that my sister might make a cake.
We killed the dragon to save the citizens.
We will give a cake to the dragon’s children so they may not eat ours.
In English, we often use an infinitive for purpose—e.g. “We killed the dragon to save the citizens.” Although there are many ways to express purpose in Latin, Latin nearly never uses infinitives like this. To translate that sentence into Latin, you’d need to extend the English out to remind yourself what the subject of the second clause will be, namely: “We killed the dragon so that we might save the citizens.
Forming sentences with purpose clauses in Latin:
· The verb in the first part of your sentence will likely be in the indicative (or imperative) mood, stating an action. It can be in any person, tense, or voice.
· Next, you’ll add a clause with a verb in the subjunctive that begins with either ut or ne.
• use ut to introduce a positive purpose clause – translate it as “so that…”
• and ne to introduce a negative purpose clause—translate either “so that … not…” or “lest…”
Tenses: purpose clauses only ever use the present or imperfect subjunctive.[1]
• If your main verb is present, future (or perfect, sometimes)[2] you’ll use the present subjunctive.
• If your main verb is imperfect, pluperfect (or again, sometimes perfect), you’ll use the imperfect subjunctive.
[1] The technical name for these two rules is the sequence of tenses. Present subjunctive is called primary sequence; imperfect subjunctive is called secondary sequence.
[2] Take the verb dedit: if you translate it “she has given”, you’ll want a present subjunctive; if you translate it “she gave”, you’ll want an imperfect subjunctive.
Here are some examples of purpose clauses with English translations. As you read through them, take a look at the tenses of both the main verb and the one in the subjunctive clause.
scribo carmen ut mater felix sit. I’m writing a song so that my mom may be happy.
scribebam carmina ut mater felix esset. I used to write songs so that mom might be happy.
scribantur carmina ut mater felix esset. Songs used to be written so that mom might be happy.
porcum fers ut deis donum des. You carried the pig to give a gift to the gods.
dormiunt ne exitium audient. They’re sleeping so they may not hear the destruction.
pugnavimus regem ne deleremur. We battled the king lest we be destroyed.
ad Forum ivimus ut porcum emeremus. We went to the Forum to buy a pig.
domum regressa sum ne pater fleat. I have returned home so that my father may not weep.
Like purpose clauses, result clauses show the outcome or consequence of an action. Similarly, they only use present and imperfect subjunctive verbs.
I have eaten so many cookies that I am now sick.
They were so good that I couldn’t stop.
I ate them so fast that no one else ate any.
Frequently, main clauses that use words that describe degree or extent prompt result clauses (so many, so). In Latin, you’ll frequently see these words in the main clause: adeo, ita, sic, tam, talis, tantus, tot, totiens.
Forming a result clause is similar to a purpose clause, in that the result clause will begin with ut. By contrast, negative result clauses also use ut non (or another negative word e.g., nemo, numquam, nullus), NOT ne.
Examples:
I have eaten so many cookies that I am now sick. tot crustula edi ut nunc aegra sim.
They were so good that I couldn’t stop. tam bona fuerunt ut desistere non possem.
I ate them so fast that no one else ate one. adeo celeriter edi ut nemo unum ederet.
Sometimes there's some overlap between result clauses and purpose clauses which can make it difficult to decide whether to translate or identify a sentence with an ut-clause as definitively result or purpose driven. For example, we just looked at how tot crustula edi ut nunc aegra sim should work as a result clause. But what if the goal of the cookie-eating was to get sick? Perhaps you ingested poison and you needed to get it out of your system and the best option seemed to be to eat a bunch of cookies, in which case, "I ate so many cookies to be sick" might make more sense. Again, this is an instance where you get to look at the larger context in which the sentence appears and make that choice yourself as the translator.