The subjunctive is one of the three (or five) moods that exist in the Spanish language. It usually appears in a dependent clause separated from the independent one by the complementizer ("that"), but not all dependent clauses require it. When the subjunctive appears, the clause may describe necessity, possibility, hopes, concession, condition, indirect commands, uncertainty, or emotionality of the speaker. The subjunctive may also appear in an independent clause, such as ones beginning with ("hopefully"), or when it is used for the negative imperative. A verb in this mood is always distinguishable from its indicative counterpart by its different conjugation.
The Spanish subjunctive mood descended from Latin, but is morphologically far simpler, having lost many of Latin's forms. Some of the subjunctive forms do not exist in Latin, such as the future, whose usage in modern-day Spanish survives only in legal language and certain fixed expressions. However, other forms of the subjunctive remain widely used in all dialects and varieties. There are two types of subjunctive conjugation of regular verbs, one for verbs whose infinitive ends in or and another for verbs whose infinitive ends in .
Overview
Spanish, also referred to as Castilian to differentiate it from other languages spoken in Spain, is an Indo-European language of the Italic branch. Belonging to the Romance family, it is a daughter language of Latin, evolving from its popular register that used to be spoken on the Iberian Peninsula. As Spain's influence grew through colonialism, the language spread outside Europe, particularly in the Americas. Contacts with other languages throughout its history have yielded many dialects and varieties with unique vocabulary and grammar. As of 2023, almost 600 million people speak Spanish, making it the fourth-most spoken language, after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi, and the most spoken Romance language in the world.
Spanish grammar is typical to that of most Indo-European languages, with verbs undergoing complex patterns of conjugation. Compared to Latin, Spanish has a far simpler nominal morphology, with no distinction of case in any parts of speech except pronouns. The three genders of Latin were simplified into two (masculine and feminine), with neuter disappearing in all but demonstratives, pronouns, and articles; unlike the other two, the neuter refers to abstract ideas or concepts, when there is no noun being referred to, and is modified by the masculine singular of an adjective, such as ("the good [thing/aspect]").
The complexity of Spanish grammar is found primarily in verbs. Inflected forms of a Spanish verb contain a lexical root, a theme vowel, and inflection; for example, the verb ("to sing") becomes ("we sing") in its first-person plural, present indicative form. Verbs inflect for tense, number, person, mood, aspect, voice, and gender. Spanish also features the T–V distinction, the pronoun that the speaker uses to address the interlocutor – formally or informally – leading to the increasing number of verb forms. Most verbs have regular conjugation, which can be known from their infinitive form, which may end in , , or . However, some are irregular, despite their infinitive having one of these endings, and knowing how to conjugate them is a matter of memorization.
Terminology Constituting one of the grammatical categories of Spanish, mood indicates modality, that is, the way a hypothetical or desired situation is expressed in a language. There are three to five moods in Spanish, among which is the subjunctive, which occurs in dependent clauses and, sometimes, in independent clauses to describe at least one of the following expressions: necessity, possibility, hopes, concession, condition, indirect commands, uncertainty, and emotionality. It also occurs after several conjunctions, even though they may not have one of these nuances. Some verbs trigger only the subjunctive; for the others, a change of meaning may happen when one substitutes the subjunctive verb of a dependent clause with an infinitive one.
There has been disagreement among linguists as to how the subjunctive mood should be defined. In the view of Spanish linguist Emilio Alarcos Llorach, it indicates the fictitious or unreal nature of the verbal root from which a form conjugated in this mood derives. He adds that the subjunctive is the marked form of the indicative. Another linguist, María Ángeles Sastre Ruano, similarly calls the subjunctive "the mode of virtuality, of hypothesis, of subjective assessment of reality", contrasting it with the indicative that is "of factuality and of objective imposition of phenomena".
In his monograph on the subjunctive, University of Delaware professor Hans-Jörg Busch argues that the mood lacks meaning at all, and that focus be given more on recognizing when it appears than questioning its semantic values. Miguel Duro Moreno of the University of Málaga states that the subjunctive is to be used when the action is no more than the product of the speaker's mental attitude towards it. A specialist of Romance linguistics, John N. Green, notes that opinions are polarized between linguists who argue for its recognition as a separate category and those who see it merely as a marker of subordination. He concludes that it is difficult to arrive on a uniform meaning of the subjunctive, and that defining it simply as a mood of uncertainty is unable to cover all of its functions.
The Spanish translation of "subjunctive" is , deriving from the Latin ("subjoined mood"), a loan translation of the Greek (hupotaktikḗ énklisis, "subordinated mood"). Linguists of Spanish have also referred to the subjunctive mood by other names, such as "the mood of non-reality" (""), "the mood of uncertainty" (""), "the mood of subjectivity" (""), and "the mood of indefinite futurity" ("").
Usage
The subjunctive is almost always found in a subordinate clause, whereas in the main clause, the indicative is used. In a sentence in which two clauses are present, the complementizer ("that") is inserted to separate them. Sometimes the word is omitted if the subjunctive is in the second clause, although this practice is limited to official language, such as in business letters. The verb of the second clause is either in the indicative or the subjunctive, depending on the one in the main clause; if the latter is of saying, thinking, or believing, the indicative is usually preferred, while if it is of an emotional state, such as volition, exhortation, demand, or fear, the subjunctive is. However, this is not true in all cases; verbs of belief trigger the subjunctive when they are negated or when the meaning is to be hypothetical or hesitant. Linguist Christopher Pountain demonstrates how a verb of emotion can be followed by either the indicative or the subjunctive, but with a different change in meaning, sometimes subtle or invisible when translated to English: "" ("I was afraid that they would get to know.") The degree of fear is a genuine one. " ("I was afraid that you (plural) would not come.") The degree of fear is a "conventional, polite" one.
As it has been stated, the negation of a verb of belief in the main clause triggers the subjunctive in the next clause, but it is also not wrong to use the indicative. The sentence "" ("Michael does not believe that Panama is a Spanish-speaking country") only presents Michael's opinion of Panama and the speaker is being neutral of it, while "" (same meaning as above) presents an intervention of the speaker's opinion, that is, the speaker believes that Panama is a Spanish-speaking country, which is contrary to what Michael believes. Verbs of thinking can also use the subjunctive, giving an invitation of doing something.
There are also occasions of the subjunctive in a single-clause sentence; this may happen when it is used as the formal positive imperative or the negative one, as well as after certain words, including ("hopefully") and adverbs of possibility, including ("probably"). However, Busch disagrees, calling such usage "pseudo-independent", and argues that different constructions are also possible, wherein two clauses occur, the first with the indicative and the other with the subjunctive; the dependency of the subjunctive to this kind of words, he adds, makes it in fact not possible to appear independently. Consider the following example: "Independent" subjunctive construction: "" ("I hope he/she/you (singular-formal) come(s) to see me tomorrow!") Alternative construction: "" ("I want that he/she/you (singular-formal) come to see me tomorrow.")
Switching the position of the clauses cannot be done without a complementizer and optionally a subject pronoun. Thus, the following construction is possible even though it would usually sound awkward in English: "" ("That he come to see me tomorrow, I want.")
Verbs of causation trigger the subjunctive mood; Busch explains that the event or action in the subordinate clause does not exist independently from what is said in the main clause, and the focus is given to what causes it or who originates it, appearing in the main clause, not what the result is, appearing in the dependent clause; the outcome is irrelevant. Thus, a correct sentence would be: "" ("The rain caused the rivers to overflow.")
The subjunctive mood is also found in relative clauses, which describe the noun that they modify, and once more the use of the indicative changes the meaning. If the subjunctive is used, it suggests that the antecedent may not exist or is not known to be in existence, and that the speaker desires that it exist; the use of the indicative suggests a definite existence and only describes the noun modified. Below is the example: "" ("María wants to marry a man that has a lot of money.") The use of the indicative gives the information that María knows the one to whom she wants to marry, and she is only describing what the man is like. "" ("María wants to marry a man that should have a lot of money.") The use of the subjunctive indicates the condition that the man to whom she wants to marry should meet; María does not have a specific man in mind, meaning that he is only hypothetical, and she wants the man to be like this, if she meets one.
However, nonexistent antecedents require only the subjunctive, including the pronouns ("nothing") or ("no one"), nouns preceded by ("no"), and when the main clause is negated. The construction "Whether ... or" is formed by the subjunctive; the same verb of this mood occurs twice in a sentence: "" ("whether you are right or wrong.") Words ending in ("-ever"), such as ("whatever/whichever") and ("whoever"), require the subjunctive; ("wherever") requires it only if an unspecified time or future is referred to, while past or habitual occurrences use the indicative.
The subjunctive is not needed when the subject of the dependent clause is the same as that of the main clause; the infinitive replaces the subjunctive clause altogether. Verbs of prohibition, request, or advice also allow the two verb forms to be used interchangeably; "" and "" (both meaning "I will let you pay for me") are possible. The usage of the subjunctive mood also varies regionally, but grammarians John Butt and Carmen Benjamin note that there is not much difference in educated speech. Furthermore, verbs that nowadays trigger the subjunctive mood may have triggered the indicative in the past, as has happened to verbs of emotion. Busch notes that the use of the indicative for this kind of verb is also retained by many speakers from Latin America, despite not being the standard.
Tenses