Chapter 29

RULE 1: Imperfect Subjunctive = Present Active Infinitive + Personal Endings

RULE 2: There is no future subjunctive.

RULE 3: The base of the present subjunctive of esse is si-.

RULE 4: Result Clauses are anticipated by "sign words" (e.g. tam, talis, tantus, ita or sic [also tot, Chapter 40]) and introduced by ut or ut non (nemo, nihil, etc.).

I. Grammar

A. The Imperfect Subjunctive

Wheelock is right that the imperfect subjunctive is the easiest of the subjunctives to recognize and form: merely the second principal part plus personal endings. No exceptions, no irregularities, but you should know that the imperfect subjunctive is not in origin that astounding oxymoron, an infinitive ("no endings") with endings.

Originally, it's a combination of the subjunctive marker -se- + personal endings, seen in its pure form in essem. In most verbs, the -s- fell between vowels (e.g. *-ase-, *-ese-) and therefore rhotacized, -are-, -ere. The base was identical to the infinitive except that the -ê- of the subjunctive was long (-rê-) and that of the infinitive was short (-re < *-si, originally the dative singular of an s-stem noun, see Chapter 1). The origin of -se is disputed but it may have been an s-aorist stem with the e-marker seen in both the first-conjugation subjunctive and the third- and fourth-conjugation future. The -s- marked the past tense (cf. scripsi) and -e- the future/subjunctive, making the form in origin another oxymoron, a future-past form.

B. No Future Subjunctive!

Since the subjunctive and the future are cognate and in many ways address different aspects of the same thing—that is, future events and upcoming possibilities—a "future subjunctive" would be at once redundant and contradictory. That is, both express futurity, but one as a certainty and the other as only a possibility. That exempts any "future subjunctive," and neither Latin nor Greek has one.

C. Subjunctive of Esse

The present base of the subjunctive of esse is si-, rendering the predictable sim, sis, sit, etc. The imperfect is the infinitive esse plus personal endings. The distinctive -i- is one of the last remaining traces of the Indo-European optative in Latin, seen also in velim, edim and the perfect subjunctive (see Chapter 30). The older forms of the present subjunctive of esse—siem, sies, siet, simus, sitis, sient—show the old gradation yê in the singular and î in the plural which later regularized to -i- throughout, cf. the Greek optative forms eiên (first singular) vs. eimen (first plural). Click here for a worksheet on these forms.

D. Result Clauses

There are three basic ingredients in a result clause:

1. a correlative or, as Wheelock calls it, a "sign word." Students should learn five, although Wheelock introduces only three: tam, talis, tantus, ita, sic [also tot, Chapter 40];
2. the subordinating conjunction ut or ut non, ut nihil, ut numquam (or any negator but ne) which introduces the clause;
3. and a subjunctive verb inside the clause.

A "sign word" is not absolutely obligatory in Latin result clauses (see Wheelock's last example on p.137), but for our purposes you may tell students that they can expect a "sign word" with all result clauses. Note that in sentences and examples Wheelock carefully directs students toward the proper tenses of the subjunctive without teaching them sequence of tenses (see Chapter 30). From the perspective of historical linguistics, with the nearly universal application of ut to subjunctives Latin lost the ability to distinguish between actual result ("I was so tired that I fell asleep.") and potential result ("I was so tired that I could have fallen asleep."), as other languages like English and Greek can do.

II. Vocabulary

• mens: This noun is related to the same base which produces memini and memor. It utilizes the -ti- suffix seen also in vestis, hostis, and pars (partis) and Greek pistis and basis (here, as -si-).
• miles: = milet- + -s (third-declension nominative singular) > *miless (Plautus sometimes treats the final syllable as long) > miles. The word may be of Etruscan origin, like veles, velitis ("a light-armed soldier"), although that derivation is far from clear. Outside of words like satelles "bodyguard" and some other mostly military, religious and everyday vocabulary, the Etruscan language made less impact than one might expect from the Etruscans' early domination of Rome.
• tantus: = tam ("so") + -t- (adjective suffix), cf. its correlative quantus = quam + -t-. Tan-dem is another compound of tam; -dem comes from a pronominal stem *do-, seen in Gk. -de and -don. Tantus is a "sign word" for result clauses.
• ita: Ita is correlative to ut (or uta, cf. aliuta "otherwise"), "as . . . thus."
• sic: = *sei + -ce (the deictic particle; see Chapter 9), making sic, in origin, the locative of the Indo-European demonstrative pronoun *so, *sâ, *tod.
• tam: Tam originates as the accusative singular feminine demonstrative, which later became an adverb, cf. clam, palam, coram, iam, nam, quam; Greek makran, peran. The demonstrative base *to- derives from Indo-European *so, *sa, *tod; cf. sic and tum (Chapter 5).
• NOTE: Add to this vocabulary list, talis, tale "of such quality, such, so." This rounds out the list of "sign words" for result clauses. Talis shares the adjective suffix -alis with its correlative qualis ("of what quality, what sort"), talis exhibiting the demonstrative base t- and qualis the interrogative-relative base qu-.
• quidem: Warn students not to confuse quidem "certainly" and quidam "someone." [Quidem = the interrogative/relative stem qui(d) + the particle -em.] Also, call to the students' attention the idiom ne X quidem ("not even X, not X even"). The ne of this idiom can mislead one to expect a negative purpose clause or the like.
• disco: This verb means "learn", not "teach"! For some reason, students seem to confuse these meanings often. [Disco = *di- (reduplication with -i- in the present tense, cf. gigno) + base -dk- (zero grade of the base seen also in decet and doceo, cf. perfect didici) + -sk- (the "inchoative" suffix showing the beginning of an action, cf. nosco, cresco). It is unclear why *di-dk-sk-o became disco, cf. Greek didasko.]

III. Sentences

In the Practice and Review there are only two result clauses with the expected "sign word" (sentences 7 and 9), which means it is advisable to take full advantage of the sentences with result clauses in the Sententiae Antiquae (all except 1 and 8; 11 has a result clause without a "sign word").

IV. QUIZ 3