Chapter 30

RULE 1: Perfect Active Subjunctive = Perfect Active Stem + -eri- + personal endings.

RULE 2: Pluperfect Active Subjunctive = Perfect Active Infinitive + personal endings.

RULE 3: The perfect and pluperfect passive subjunctive substitute subjunctive sim and essem for indicative sum and eram with the perfect passive participle. There is no future perfect subjunctive.

RULE 4: Sequence of Tenses:
1) Primary = Present, Future, Future Perfect main verb + Present or Perfect subjunctive verb in clause;
2) Secondary = Imperfect, Perfect, Pluperfect main verb + Imperfect or Pluperfect subjunctive verb in clause.

I. Grammar

A. The Perfect Subjunctive

The similarity between perfect subjunctive forms (e.g. amaverim, amaveris, etc.) and future perfect indicative active forms (e.g. amavero, amaveris, etc.) points up the common link between the subjunctive and the future. Hence, just as there is no future subjunctive, there is no future perfect subjunctive. Call to your students' attention the one ostensible difference between these forms: the first person singular, laudaverim (perfect subjunctive) and laudavero (future perfect indicative). Students often ask, "If these forms are identical, how did the Romans tell them apart?" The answer is that context will dictate how to interpret the form: a perfect subjunctive will almost always be in a clause requiring the subjunctive, whereas a future perfect indicative will be a main verb or in a clause not requiring the subjunctive.

1. History of the Perfect Subjunctive

The perfect subjunctive and future perfect indicative evolved from different constituents:

  1. Perfect Subjunctive: *-isi- > -eri-
  2. Future Perfect Indicative: *-ise/o- > -eri-/-erî-; the past marker -is- rhotacized to -er- and the -i- is the same "optative" marker as in sim (see Chapter 29).

A long -î- distinguishes the perfect subjunctive from the future perfect indicative in three forms: the second singular (e.g. amaverîs), the first plural (amaverîmus) and the second person plural (e.g. amaverîtis); cf. sîs, sîmus, sîtis. Strictly, these long marks are mandatory and students should memorize them, but in reality the need to distinguish the perfect subjunctive and the future perfect indicative through the long marks—context usually makes the choice clear—is required so infrequently that the memorization of these "mandatory" long marks seems to me burdensome and of little practical worth. It also distracts the students from the mandatory long marks which are more common and important to fundamental syntax. It's my advice not to stress these long marks or make them mandatory.

B. The Pluperfect Subjunctive

Like the imperfect subjunctive, the pluperfect subjunctive is ostensibly a combination of the perfect active infinitive and personal endings. In fact, however, it is a combination of different elements from those which comprise the infinitive (see Chapter 25). The pluperfect subjunctive -isse- = the past marker -is- + -se which is the same component seen in the imperfect subjunctive, (see Chapter 29), but here it's unrhotacized. Note that, just as in the imperfect subjunctive, the -ê- of the pluperfect subjunctive ending, -issê- is long, unlike the -e- of the infinitive.

Click here for a worksheet on the perfect and pluperfect forms of the subjunctive. Do the top part of the first page.

C. Indirect Questions

An indirect question is a form of a question which has been rephrased so that it is not quoted "directly" (verbatim) but is a restatement of the original question, e.g. "Who was he?" (direct question) versus "He asked who he was" (indirect question). Indirect questions have three components:

  1. Verb of Asking, Requesting, Demanding, etc. Indirect questions must be introduced by a word which can express a question indirectly, e.g. think (why...), wonder (how...), realize (who...), etc.
  2. Question Word. Both Latin and English indirect questions are introduced by a "question word" (e.g. who, how, when), with whether in English and an or num in Latin introducing questions not introduced by a question word ("Are you going?" "He asked whether I was going.").
  3. Subordinate Verb. Indirect questions in English are distinct from direct questions by reversing the usual inversion of subject and verb/modal in direct questions, as in the example cited above ("Who was he?" versus "He asked who he was."). In Latin, where no such shift of word order would create meaningful syntax, indirect questions take the subjunctive, as opposed to direct questions which use the indicative. [This distinction was not always part of Latin. In Old Latin the use of different moods, subjunctive or indicative, distinguished indirect questions which were dubitative ("I wondered whether he had a name.") and those which were factual ("I told him what my name is.").] Note that Latin indirect questions follow Sequence of Tenses (see below).

D. An Overview of Indirect Discourse

I have had success approaching "indirect" expressions in the following way. I tell students that there are essentially three types of sentences: statements, questions and commands. People restating "indirectly" another's words must be able to relate any of the three types of sentences in an "indirect" fashion. For that reason, there are indirect statements (Chapter 25), indirect questions (this chapter) and indirect commands (called Jussive Noun Clauses, Chapter 36). All three are formed differently from each other in Latin and English:

ENGLISH DISCOURSE TYPE LATIN
He said that he was good.
(that clause)		 Indirect Statement Dixit se esse bonum.
(accusative + infinitive)
He asked who he was.
(inverted-question word order)		 Indirect Question Rogavit quis sit.
(question word + subjunctive)
He ordered me to be good.
(accusative + infinitive)		 Indirect Command** Imperavit ut bonus essem.
(ut/ne + subjunctive)

** I introduce Indirect Command to students in this chapter but do not require them to know it yet.

What's most informative about looking at indirect discourse this way is the difference between the typical Latin and English constructions used to convey Indirect Statement and Indirect Command. Given two possibilities (accusative + infinitive OR a clause introduced by a subordinating conjunction), the Romans choose the opposite of standard English usage. That is, they use accusative + infinitive in Indirect Statement and (most often) a subordinate clause in Indirect Command, whereas English tends toward the reverse. Once students see these constructions as a choice between possibilities, it becomes easier to learn them.

E. Sequence of Tenses

For all the complicated tables and charts Wheelock provides (pp.142-3), there are only two situations in which most students will need to grasp the concept of sequence of tenses:

  1. with a present- or future-tense main verb (primary sequence), a dependent clause shows prior action with a perfect (not imperfect) subjunctive;
  2. with a past-tense main verb (secondary sequence), a dependent clause shows contemporaneous action with an imperfect (not perfect) subjunctive.

The rest follows from common sense: a subjunctive verb which is present will always be present and one which includes "had" will always be pluperfect.

Nevertheless, you should teach students about sequence of tenses and introduce the terms "historical tense," "primary sequence," "secondary sequence," "contemporaneous action" and "prior action," if only so you can ask the grammatical question "What tense and why?" in relation to a subjunctive verb in a subordinate clause. Also, be aware that the perfect tense is sometimes considered a primary tense in Latin, especially when the speaker is looking at the immediate impact of a past action. For our purposes here, however, it will always be secondary.

As far as I'm concerned, students need not memorize the so-called "future subjunctive" (e.g. facturus sit) which Wheelock mentions on pp.142-3. As a periphrastic construction, it will pose no difficulty if it ever shows up in a Latin text ("he is going to do"); it is, in fact, relatively rare. Moreover, I think it's inadvisable to confuse students with a term like the "future subjunctive" when they have just learned that no such thing exists. Since it is more important at this stage to reinforce rules than exceptions and students will not encounter another example of this in all of Wheelock's formal exercises, I do not include this periphrastic form in the lesson or on tests.

For practice with sequence of tenses, see the second half of the worksheet for this chapter. Click here for that worksheet.

II. Vocabulary

  • ferrum: This word is non-Indo-European in origin, possibly cognate with Hebrew barzel, Syriac parzla and Assyrian parzilla. Unfortunately, the source of these cognates is also unknown. From the widespread use of this base, however, it is surmised that some common invaders bringing knowledge of iron-working (and possibly also horse-riding) swept through areas as disparate as Italy and the Near East.
  • malum: Originating as the neuter substantive of the adjective malus, this noun shows up in Latin with some frequency. The mal- base in Latin may be related to Greek meleos ("wretched, vain, useless").
  • ceteri: A plural adjective, its origin is uncertain. It possibly represents the combination of *cae ("and," cf. Greek kai) + (h)eter- ("other").
  • quantus: see tantus, Chapter 29.
  • iam: see tam, Chapter 29.
  • cognosco: = the intensive prefix con- (cum-) + gno- ("know") + inchoative -sc- (see disco, Chapter 29). [The base gno- is related to English know, ken, cunning and can (can originally meant "know how to . . . ").]
  • comprehendo: = con- (cum-) + prae- ("before") + hend- ("take"). The base hend- derives from Indo-European *ghed-/*ghod- ("seize"), which underlies English get. The -n- in hend- is a nasal infix (-n-). From the same base comes praeda ("booty"): prae- + *ghed- > *praeheda > (by syncope) praeda.
  • rogo: This verb is related to the reg- base, seen in Latin rego ("direct, rule"). Originally it may have implied "to stretch towards."
  • primo: See prae/pro, Chapter 27. The adverb ending -o began as -od, the ablative singular form of the adjective, just as -um (e.g. primum) was originally accusative singular. The ending -o did not shorten as did modo and cito, because the first syllable of prîmum is long. Only disyllabic words of the pattern "short syllable + long syllable" shortened in Latin, a process called "iambic shortening" (cf. ego > ego, mihi > mihi, duo > duo, nisi > nisi).
  • unde: This adverb shows motion away from ("whence, from where"), as opposed to ubi which shows place where ("at what place").

III. Sentences

Reinforce the correct analysis of the sequence of tenses, especially in the English-to-Latin sentences.