[Multilingual Monday] The Subjunctive
One of the hardest things about learning the Spanish language all those years ago, is the use of the subjunctive. Because English's subjunctive is sporadic (to put it mildly), the initial concept that a whole VERB conjugation existed for something that didn't seem so separate a concept in English was, intially, a confusing one. The slow demise of the subjunctive in English is certainly not helping matters; many people say, "If I were you..." (which I'm not, but IF I were), and this uses the subjunctive form, "I were" (and not the indicative "I was"). However,other people say, "If he was ten years younger..." (which uses the same verb cases, and is in common speech is just as interchangable as the "subjunctive" form "If he were ten years younger..."). Spanish, however, has a completely different set of verb conjugations to indicate one's desires, doubt, and wishes -- for those who've seen the film Cachorro, for example, you may remember little Bernado being upset as his grandmother and screaming to her, "¡Ojalá que mueras!", "I hope you die!" Mueras is the subjunctive second person form of the verb morir, "to die", and is in the subjunctive in this case because he WANTS his grandmother to die, not because she's really dying at any point in time. This construction is common among Romance languages, but just what IS the subjunctive, and ISN'T the subjunctive, depends upon just what language you're speaking ...
For example, Spanish DOES use the subjunctive when one says, "No creo que..." (I don't think), but DOESN'T when someone says, "Creo que..." (I think). I've never been really clear as to why this is; presumably you have a strong enough of a conviction to state the positive as a fact, as far as you know ("I think that Sanrio is evil"), where as the negvative indicates that there's doubt and, indeed, there's a possibility that what you don't think, might be true ("I don't think that Susie is an axe murderer ..." -- but she might be! Now that you bring it up ...). Now, at least to an English thinker, this is a bit flawed; after all, in English, something like, "I think Carl is masturbating in the living room," could just as easily indicate a doubt (after all, Carl could also be in the bedroom sleeping, or on the crapper, or on the balcony throwing furniture on top of the car whose alarm won't stop blaring). Yet, no matter how much doubt that there may be here, as long as the form of creer is in the affirmative, the following clause does NOT use the subjunctive. This is different from, say, Italian, where a construction using "penso che" (I think that...) uses the subjunctive.
Indeed, a term like "subjunctive" can cover certain uses in one language, but not another. It's not uncommon for the subjunctive to be used for, say, a negative command in certain Romance languages (Spanish and No me vayas -- "Don't leave me"), or to be used for indirect quotes (German and Er sagte, er habe den Brief geschrieben., "He says he's written the letter."), but this is dependent upon language. Turkish, for example, wouldn't use its subjunctive for either one of these purposes, and instead has a more limited to use to statements like, "If only I had gone, " Gideydim; the other two examples would be rendered not in the subjunctive but with an imperative verb (beni terk etme, "Don't leave me"), or with gerundive and a specific verb meant to indicate indirect speech (Mektubu yazdığını söyledi, "He said he wrote the letter," or literally, "The-letter (direct object) he-writing he said"). Even though the MOOD shares a name among many languages, this doesn't mean that they function the exact same (even among language families). Other moods may exist, and that fact seems to sometimes affect how much ground the subjunctive covers in a languages, barring other factors (like complexity of use or a simple gradual disappearance of a subjunctive in gereral in that language).
For example, Spanish DOES use the subjunctive when one says, "No creo que..." (I don't think), but DOESN'T when someone says, "Creo que..." (I think). I've never been really clear as to why this is; presumably you have a strong enough of a conviction to state the positive as a fact, as far as you know ("I think that Sanrio is evil"), where as the negvative indicates that there's doubt and, indeed, there's a possibility that what you don't think, might be true ("I don't think that Susie is an axe murderer ..." -- but she might be! Now that you bring it up ...). Now, at least to an English thinker, this is a bit flawed; after all, in English, something like, "I think Carl is masturbating in the living room," could just as easily indicate a doubt (after all, Carl could also be in the bedroom sleeping, or on the crapper, or on the balcony throwing furniture on top of the car whose alarm won't stop blaring). Yet, no matter how much doubt that there may be here, as long as the form of creer is in the affirmative, the following clause does NOT use the subjunctive. This is different from, say, Italian, where a construction using "penso che" (I think that...) uses the subjunctive.
Indeed, a term like "subjunctive" can cover certain uses in one language, but not another. It's not uncommon for the subjunctive to be used for, say, a negative command in certain Romance languages (Spanish and No me vayas -- "Don't leave me"), or to be used for indirect quotes (German and Er sagte, er habe den Brief geschrieben., "He says he's written the letter."), but this is dependent upon language. Turkish, for example, wouldn't use its subjunctive for either one of these purposes, and instead has a more limited to use to statements like, "If only I had gone, " Gideydim; the other two examples would be rendered not in the subjunctive but with an imperative verb (beni terk etme, "Don't leave me"), or with gerundive and a specific verb meant to indicate indirect speech (Mektubu yazdığını söyledi, "He said he wrote the letter," or literally, "The-letter (direct object) he-writing he said"). Even though the MOOD shares a name among many languages, this doesn't mean that they function the exact same (even among language families). Other moods may exist, and that fact seems to sometimes affect how much ground the subjunctive covers in a languages, barring other factors (like complexity of use or a simple gradual disappearance of a subjunctive in gereral in that language).