Learn About The Subjunctive Mood in The Romance Languages

The subjunctive mood retains a highly distinct form for nearly all verbs in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian (among other Latin languages), and for a number of verbs in French. All of these languages inherit their subjunctive from Latin, where the subjunctive mood combines both forms and usages from a number of original Indo-European inflection sets, including the original subjunctive and the optative mood.

In many cases, the Romance languages use the subjunctive in the same ways that English does; however, they use them in other ways as well. For example, English generally uses the auxiliary may or let to form desiderative expressions, such as “Let it snow.” The Romance languages use the subjunctive for these; French, for example, would say, “Qu'il neige” and “Qu'ils vivent jusqu'à leur vieillesse.”
(However, in the case of the first-person plural, these languages have imperative forms: “Let's go” in French is “Allons-y.”) Also, the Romance languages tend to use the subjunctive in various kinds of subordinate clauses, such as those introduced by words meaning although (English: “Although I'm old, I feel young”; French: Bien que je sois vieux, je me sens jeune.)

French

In French, despite the deep phonetic changes that the language has undergone from the original Latin, which include the loss of many inflections in the spoken language, the subjunctive (le subjonctif) remains prominent, largely because the subjunctive forms of many common verbs are strongly marked phonetically; compare the indicative je sais (I know) and its subjunctive counterpart je sache. (However, the present indicatives and present subjunctives of most verbs are homonyms when they have singular subjects: j'aime (I love) is both the present indicative and the present subjunctive.)

Use of the subjunctive is in many respects similar to English:

Jussive: Il faut qu'il comprenne ça.: “It is necessary that he understand this.”
Desiderative: Vive la reine!: “Long live the queen!”

But sometimes not:

Desiderative: Que la lumière soit !: “Let there be light!”
In certain subordinate clauses:
- Bien que ce soit mon anniversaire… “Even though it is my birthday…”
- Avant que je ne m'en aille… “Before I go…”

French also has an imperfect subjunctive, which in older, formal, or literary writing replaces the present subjunctive in a subordinate clause when the main clause is in a past tense:

English: It was necessary that he speak (present subjunctive).
Everyday modern French: Il était nécessaire qu'il parle (present subjunctive).
Older, formal, or literary French: Il était nécessaire qu'il parlât (imperfect subjunctive).

Also in older, formal, or literary writing, the imperfect and pluperfect subjunctives double as a “second form” of the conditional and conditional perfect, in which case they are used in both the protasis and the apodosis:

English: Had we known (pluperfect subjunctive), we could have prevented (conditional perfect) it.
Everyday modern French: Si on l'avait su (pluperfect indicative), on aurait pu (conditional perfect) le prévenir.
Older, formal, or literary French: L'eussions-nous su (conditional perfect, second form), nous l'eussions pu (conditional perfect, second form) prévenir.

Like English, Portuguese and Spanish use the imperfect subjunctive in hypotheticals after se and si (“if”), respectively. In such a case, the main clause is in the conditional mood.

English: If I were (past subjunctive) the king, I would change (present conditional) the law.
Portuguese: Se eu fosse (imperfect subjunctive) o rei, mudaria (present conditional) a lei.
Spanish: Si yo fuese (imperfect subjunctive) el rey, cambiaría (present conditional) la ley.

English: It is necessary that he speak (present subjunctive). → It was necessary that he speak (present subjunctive).
Portuguese: É necessário que fale (present subjunctive). → Era necessário que falasse (imperfect subjunctive).
Spanish: Es necesario que hable (present subjunctive). → Era necesario que hablara (imperfect subjunctive).

Portuguese

In Portuguese, the subjunctive (subjuntivo) is used in conjunction with expressions of emotion, opinion, or viewpoint. It also is used to described situations that are considered unlikely or are in doubt, as well as for expressing disagreement, denial, or wishes, similarly to Spanish.

In Portuguese, the use of the subjunctive is similar to English:

Jussive: É importante que ele comprenda isso.: “It is important that he understand this.”
Desiderative: Viva o rei!: “Long live the king!”

It also bears similarities to the use in French:

Desiderative: Faça-se a luz! “Let there be light!”
In certain subordinate clauses:
- Ainda que seja meu aniversário... “Even though it is my birthday…”
- Antes que (eu) vá… “Before (I) go…”

Portuguese differs from other Romance languages in its conservation of a future subjunctive (futuro do subjuntivo), which was once widespread in Spanish, but however now is only used in extremely formal government documents. This is used to express a condition that is likely to be fulfilled or will be. This form is identical to the personal infinitive, except with twelve irregular verbs; and even with these, the future subjunctive and personal infinitive have the same endings.

An example of this is someone (likely to be elected president) saying:

Se (eu) for eleito presidente, acabarei com a fome. “If (I) am elected president, I will end famine.”

Compare this with:

Se (eu) fosse eleito presidente, acabaria com a fome. “If (I) were elected president, I would end famine.”

Equally, someone talking about another could say:

Quando (tu) fores mais velho... “When (you) are older…”

Spanish

In Spanish, the subjunctive (subjuntivo) is used in conjunction with expressions of emotion, opinion, or viewpoint. It is also used to describe situations that are considered unlikely or are in doubt, as well as for expressing disagreement, denial, or wishes.

There are many common expressions that commonly introduce subjunctive clauses. Examples include:

Es una lástima que “It's a shame that”
Es bueno que “It's good that…”
Es horroroso que “It's horrible that…”

Spanish has two past subjunctive forms. They are almost identical, except that where the “first form” has -ra-, the “second form” has -se-. The second form is a literary, somewhat archaic tense, and is not used in everyday speech; however, it can be found frequently in literature, poetry, and other writings.

Spanish used to have a future subjunctive tense, but it is now all but extinct. It is never heard in everyday speech, and is usually reserved for literature, archaic phrases and expressions, and legal documents. Phrases expressing the subjunctive in a future time-frame instead employ the present subjunctive. For example: “I hope it will rain tomorrow” would simply be “Espero que mañana llueva” (where llueva is the third-person singular present subjunctive of llover, “to rain”).

Copyright © 2005-2012 Subjunctives.com. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.