|
 |
Imparfait du Subjonctif for Conditionnel | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4290 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 1 of 5 23 October 2013 at 7:28am | IP Logged | ||
|
For some reason my brain was not working, so the title should have been "Imparfait du
Subjonctif for Imparfait du Indicatif". Was there a point in time where French used the imparfait du subjonctif for the nowadays imparfait du indicatif in the si-clauses? I have noticed that in the other Romance languages, in si-clauses, the clause that has the "si" is included with the finite verb in the imparfait du subjonctif equivalent. But in French they use the imparfait here for example (Si [imparfait], [conditionnel], "If I could eat with you, I would come too" is "Si je pouvais manger avec vous, je viendrais aussi". But in Spanish, it would be "Si pudiese...", Portuguese "Se pudesse...", Italian "Se poteste...". Since I work on all of these languages almost daily (or try to do so), it always seems slightly odd when I return to the French si- clause and the indicative is used here. My brain has almost been engrained to connect a si-clause with an imperfect subjunctive. Edited by 1e4e6 on 23 October 2013 at 8:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gaggilla Tetraglot Newbie Switzerland Joined 5017 days ago 18 posts - 28 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Romanian Studies: Icelandic, Persian, Hungarian, Danish | Message 2 of 5 23 October 2013 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I'm by no means an expert in this field, but I think from the literature I've read that the switch must have
happened some time during the period of moyen français. I've found this interesting discussion in a French language forum (scroll down to the post by Sysiphe to see an example). You can also find the subject discussed on this Russian (?) website on the changes that occurred during the development of moyen out of ancient French (scroll down to "Le subjonctif"). Hope that helps! Edit: No idea why the links aren't displayed correctly, sorry for that! Here they are, delete the spaces after copying them: 1. http://forum.lokanova.net/viewtopic.php?t=12137&highlight=pr otase 2. http://edu.grsu.by/books/history_french_lang/index.php/modul e-v-le-moyen-fran-ais-xive-xve-ss/le- moyen-fran-ais-les-changements-morphologiques Edited by gaggilla on 23 October 2013 at 5:09pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 5 23 October 2013 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | ||
There's also this charmingly weird artifact which is occasionally seen in highly formal French:
This is conjugated with a subjunctive auxiliary verb, and it looks exactly the same as the subjunctive pluperfect, which is itself a rather literary tense. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5865 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 4 of 5 24 October 2013 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Wow, thanks both of you! Catalan actually used to use the imperfect indicative in conditional sentences but now prefers the subjunctive form, perhaps from the influence of Spanish.
@gagilla: If you want to make sure there are no spaces, you can use the URL tags (press the button that looks like an earth with a chain on it, next to the U). Otherwise i believe you're limited to 50 characters per word. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 5 24 October 2013 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
|
A further note on this -- here is another weird rule involving si and the subjunctive: if you have a clause beginning with "si" and you wish to introduce a second part to this clause, you need to use "que" and the subjunctive should then follow. So, you'd get: "Si je viens te chercher et que tu ne sois pas prêt, je partirai sans toi." Needless to say, few know or follow the rule, even in writing.
3 persons have voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
