Grammar ReviewGrammar ReviewFirst Catullus ModuleFirst Catullus Module

Topics for Today:

Independent uses of the Subjunctive

Uses of the Genitive Case

Semi-deponent Verbs

Independent Uses of the Subjunctive

❖ Remember, the subjunctive mood is normally used in subordinate clauses (= dependent clauses) - for instance:

❖ circumstantial, causal or concessive cum clauses

❖ some conditional clauses (“if clauses”)

❖ purpose clauses

❖ some relative clauses (e.g. of character)

To put it another way:

❖ We should not expect the main verb to be in the subjunctive mood

❖ That’s pretty much what “subjunctive” means - it’s a mood made for subordinate ideas

❖ But you have learned several exceptions - instances where the main verb is indeed subjunctive

Independent use of the Subjunctive means that

the main verb of the sentence is subjunctive.

Or: the verb in an independent clause is

subjunctive

The Uses:

❖ Jussive / Prohibitive

❖ Hortatory

❖ Optative

❖ Potential / Concessive

❖ Deliberative

Jussive / Prohibitive

❖ Jussive subjunctive is used for commands, prohibitive (negative jussive) to forbid.

❖ Why not just use the imperative?

❖ Jussive subjunctive is used for commands in the third person - something that seems very foreign in English:

❖ Let him come: veniat

❖ Let them look: spectent

Prohibitive:

❖ Jussive subjunctive is negated with ne. This is often called the prohibitive subjunctive (in case you don’t have enough jargon to learn)

❖ He must not come: ne veniat

❖ They must not look: ne spectent

❖ Note the difficulty of consistently translating jussive/prohibitive

What about second person?

❖ In theory, a jussive subjunctive would make sense in the second person, as a polite alternative to the imperative

❖ In practice, however, only the prohibitive (negative jussive) is used in the second person

❖ Don’t do this: ne hoc facias

Hortatory Subjunctive❖ You can think of the hortatory subjunctive as

the jussive applied to the first person (I/We)

❖ Hortor: I encourage

❖ It makes sense to us when it’s plural:

❖ Let’s look: spectemus

❖ Singular is possible in theory, but it is usually treated as a wish rather than a command, and therefore called the optative subjunctive:

Optative Subjunctive❖ Used to express a wish, in any person

❖ Negated with ne (contrast with hortatory)

❖ Often introduced by utinam

❖ Without utinam, can be hard to tell apart from the jussive or hortatory

❖ videam patrem / utinam patrem videam: may I see my father!

❖ ne perdamus amicos: may we not lose our friends

Potential Subjunctive:

❖ A&G 445: “the mood represents the action as merely conceived or possible, not as desired (hortatory, optative) or real (indicative)”

❖ Sometimes it’s the protasis of an implied conditional:

❖ haec sanus credas: you’d believe this if you were sensible

❖ Sometimes it’s part of an indefinite expression:

❖ freto assimilare possis (Ovid. Met. 5.6), you might compare it to a sea. [“you” here isn’t a real person]

❖ Sometimes it’s a cautious assertion:

❖ velim in forum ire: I’d prefer to go to the forum

Concessive:

❖ Used to concede a point in argument:

❖ sit fur, sit sacrilegus: at est bonus imperator (Cicero. Ver. 5.4), grant he is a thief, a godless wretch: yet he is a good general.

Deliberative:

❖ A way of asking a question of oneself

❖ Imagine the question prefaced by “I ask myself...”

❖ quid faciam? what am I to do

❖ quo eat? where is she to go?

❖ quem spectetis? whom should you look at?

Independent Subjunctive in Past

Tenses❖ quid fecissem? what could I have done?

❖ ne fecisses: if only you hadn’t done it.

❖ credo, feceris: I believe you would have done it

❖ There are many more complicated versions of these subjunctives: Allen & Greenough 439-447 collects a good number of them

A Word on Jargon

Not all scholars or teachers agree on the terminology used to describe these subjunctives. In particular, don’t be surprised to see hortatory, jussive and prohibitive used in slightly different ways. Focus on the main idea: independent subjunctives express wish, potentiality or command.

NEXT:

The Genitive Case:

❖ We are used to seeing the genitive used to denote possession:

❖ puellae libellus: the girl’s book

❖ The genitive case has a much wider range of meaning, expressing relations that have to do with origin, source, part or cause

❖ We’re going to focus on the partitive

Partitive Genitive

❖ A noun that is a part of another noun (singluar or plural), including time or place

❖ pars nautarum: a portion of the sailors

❖ id loci: that place

❖ A number:

❖ duo militum: two of the soldiers

❖ An adjective that expresses quantity:

❖ multae feminarum: many of the women

❖ Superlatives:

❖ pessimus omnium: worst of all

Semi-Deponent Verbs

❖ You learned that some verbs lack active forms (they put them aside, or “depose” them). Those verbs use passive forms to express active meaning.

❖ Some examples of full deponents:

❖ sequor, sequi, secutus sum: I follow

❖ ingredior, ingredi, ingressus sum: I enter

❖ loquor, loqui, locutus sum, to speak, talk

❖ patior, pati, passus sum: I suffer

❖ 4 Latin verbs have some active forms, but are deponent in the perfect:

❖ audeo, -ere, ausus sum, I dare

❖ gaudeo, -ere, gavisus sum, I rejoice

❖ fïdo, -ere, fïsus sum, I trust

❖ soleo, -ere, solitus sum, I am accustomed to

❖ Note that there is no simple way to make a perfect passive for these verbs; in particular, do not be tempted to see fisus sum as passive - it is active in sense.