Professor Dave again, let’s look at present subjunctive.
Now that we understand the subjunctive mood and how to use it, let’s talk about the
specific tenses of the subjunctive.
There are four of them, and the tense that is used will depend on the tense used in the
main clause.
This is according to “la concordanza dei tempi”, or the sequence of tenses.
First up is the present subjunctive, or congiuntivo presente, which is the easiest of the four.
Before we jump into conjugations, let’s quickly recall two main rules.
First, only verbs expressing things like opinion, doubt, hopes, or desires will trigger the
subjunctive.
And second, the subject in the main clause must be different from the subject in the
dependent clause.
Now let’s go through the present subjunctive on a handful of verbs across the conjugations,
taking note that the forms are very similar to the indicative.
Remember, this would be something like: lei spera che io canti, or she hopes that I sing.
The fact that she hopes is what changes this from io canto, or I sing, which would be used
if one was actually singing.
And one more from the third conjugation that will look a little different, finire.
So we will likely notice a couple things.
First, the forms are always preceded by the conjunction che, even if it doesn’t seem
like it would be in English.
We could say: I think that they are coming at seven, or we could shorten this to: I think
they are coming at seven, but in Italian, either way, this must be:
The next thing we will notice is that the second and third conjugations are identical.
Most importantly, we will also note that for all conjugations, the first, second, and third
person singular forms are identical to one another.
This is unprecedented in Italian.
Because of this, it is crucial to express the subject in the dependent clause at all
times, so as to avoid ambiguity.
If we didn’t say io, we wouldn’t know who she is thinking about.
Same thing here, since canti is the same in both sentences, we need to include lei for clarity.
Next we notice that the first person plural is the same as the indicative.
Even for verbs that end in SCO, which as we recall, drop the interfix in the first person plural.
Second person plural is also the same in all three conjugations.
Next, verbs ending in CARE, GARE, CIARE, and GIARE will follow the same rules as in the
indicative regarding maintaining the same sound or dropping the extra I.
And lastly, as always, there are some irregular verbs to memorize, and these are the irregular
ones we have seen over and over again thus far.
The good news is that we can just memorize the first person singular forms, and from
there the rest of the conjugations will be obvious.
Here are the important ones.
Now let’s see some of these in action.
And that wraps things up for the present subjunctive tense.
Before we move on to another tense, let’s check comprehension.