The subjunctive with non-assertive verbs

A common use of the subjunctive in Spanish (and other Romance languages such as French) involves a category of verbs that we can roughly define as non-assertive. We're dealing essentially with sentences of the form:

main clause + that + subordinate clause

The following are examples of this pattern of sentence. The verbs marked SUBJ would generally be in the subjunctive in Spanish; the one marked SUBJ? might be in the subjunctive, depending on the meaning/emphasis of the sentence; and the other verbs would be in the normal "indicative" form. Our task on this and the following pages will be to define some criteria for working out when a verb in this type of sentence would be in the subjunctive:

David says that John is a liar
El País reported yesterday that the president is dead
I think we have time
Paul doubts that we have-SUBJ time
I understand that you've-SUBJ? been ill
I'm shocked that he won't-SUBJ help
We think it's appropriate to send a gift
We scarcely think it's-SUBJ appropriate to send a gift

Suggest a change / Cambios sugeridos

So when do we decide to use the subjunctive? Well, the basic rule of thumb is that:

Spanish generally uses a subjunctive in the subordinate clause if the verb in the main clause is non-assertive.

This leaves the obvious question of what is a non-assertive verb?. In the next section and the following pages, we'll look at this problem.

Assertive and non-assertive verbs

Essentially, assertive verbs are ones that "simply state" something, to the extent that they can be seen as secondary to the thing being stated (the that clause). Now, this definition still sounds a bit vague. But depending on your dialect of English, there are generally a couple of tests that you can use to determine whether a verb is "assertive" (requiring the indicative) or "non-assertive" (requiring the subjunctive). On the following pages, we'll look at these tests in more detail:

The postposition test for the subjunctive looks at whether a sentence can be "re-cast" by putting the main verb at the end. Essentially, the subjunctive is used in cases that can't be re-cast. For example, a clue to the use of the subjunctive in I doubt he's coming is that this sentence can't be re-cast as He's coming, I doubt.
For some speakers, the possibility to use that plus infinitive is a clue that Spanish will use a subjunctive (e.g. He insisted that they not be late).

comments powered by Disqus

Español-Inglés home Introduction to Spanish verbs Spanish-English dictionary