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(Spanish: "Si yo fuera/fuese rico, compraría una casa.") [66] The perfect past subjunctive (the imperfect subjunctive of haber and then a past participle) refers to an unfulfilled condition in the past, and the other clause would be in the perfect conditional: "Si yo hubiera/hubiese tenido dinero, habría comprado la casa" ("If I had been rich ...
An example of the subtlety of the Spanish subjunctive is the way the tense (past, present or future) modifies the expression "be it as it may" (literally "be what it be"): Sea lo que sea (present subjunctive + present subjunctive): "No matter what/whatever." Sea lo que fuera (present subjunctive + past subjunctive): "Whatever it were."
The choice between present subjunctive and imperfect subjunctive is determined by the tense of the main verb of the sentence. The future subjunctive is rarely used in modern Spanish and mostly appears in old texts, legal documents, and certain fixed expressions, such as venga lo que viniere ("come what may").
Today, the two forms of the imperfect subjunctive – for example, "hubiese" and "hubiera", from "haber" – are largely interchangeable.* The -se form derives (as in most Romance languages) from the Latin pluperfect subjunctive, while the -ra form derives from the Latin pluperfect indicative.
For example, él, ella, or usted can be replaced by a noun phrase, or the verb can appear with impersonal se and no subject (e.g. Aquí se vive bien, 'One lives well here'). The first-person plural expressions nosotros , nosotras , tú y yo , or él y yo can be replaced by a noun phrase that includes the speaker (e.g. Los estudiantes tenemos ...
in the present indicative, all singular forms and the third-person plural (pido, pides, pide, piden); the remaining forms of the present subjunctive (pida, pidas, pidan); the tú form of the imperative (pide). The forms which do not undergo either diphthongizing or vowel raising are:
In the Latin language, the present subjunctive has a usage labelled the "jussive subjunctive" or coniunctivus iussivus that expresses 3rd-person orders: [4] [5] Adiuvet ("Let him help.") Veniant ("Let them come.") A jussive use of the present subjunctive is also attested for the second person in sayings and poetry, as well as in early Latin. [6]
The subjunctive mood, sometimes called conjunctive mood, has several uses in dependent clauses. Examples include discussing hypothetical or unlikely events, expressing opinions or emotions, or making polite requests (the exact scope is language-specific). A subjunctive mood exists in English, but it often is not obligatory.