Romance and Slavic subjunctives as clausal moods

In this section, we will observe that Romance and Slavic subjunctives share a cluster of common properties in a number of areas, which include (among others): the types of modal meaning that they denote; their temporal properties; common distributional patterns; as well as some common formal properties in relation to control (or anti-control, to be more precise). The observations that will be made in this context will lead to the conclusion that Romance and Slavic subjunctive can both be analyzed as belonging to the same clausal mood category, which involves the same type of syntactic CP complementation. The latter will then be analyzed in more formal detail in Sections 2.3 and 2.4.

2.2.2.1 Distributional and semantic similarities

We could already observe some shared mood patterns between Romance and Slavic languages in relation to complements selected by desiderative-type verbs. Such complements were shown to exhibit distinct morphological marking with respect to their indicative counterparts in both groups of languages (the only difference being related to the type of item which encodes this distinctive marking), which can thus be seen as the first indication of a possible common analysis of Romance and Slavic subjunctives in terms of clausal mood. Here I will further motivate such a common analysis by showing that the distinctive subjunctive-related morphological marking in the two language groups is not just observed in complements to desideratives, but also in a range of additional syntactic environments where subjunctive typically appears from a cross-linguistic perspective. Observe, for instance, the examples below:³⁶

(67) a. Pide que vengas mañana. (Spanish) ask3.sg. that come2.sg.SUBJ tomorrow

b. On prosit, chtoby ty prishel zavtra. (Russian) he asks SUBJ you come tomorrow

‘He asks you to come tomorrow.’

36 In order to avoid redundancy, only one example is given for each intensional-type verb group in Romance and Slavic languages, but the same complementation patterns hold throughout.

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(68) a. Je m’attends à ce que tu viennes demain. (French) I expect that you comeSUBJ tomorrow

b. Ochakvam da dojdesh utre. (Bulgarian) expect1.sg. SUBJ come2.sg. tomorrow

‘I expect you to come tomorrow.’

(69) a. Suggerisco che venga domani. (Italian) suggest1.sg. that come3.sg.SUBJ tomorrow

b. Proponuje, zeby przyszedl jutro. (Polish) suggest1.sg. SUBJ come tomorrow

‘I suggest that he comes tomorrow.’

As we can see in (67-69), distinctive subjunctive-related mood morphology in Romance and Slavic is also observed in complements to verbs such as directives, as well as a number of other irrealis future-referring predicates which can be described as intensional verbs, in the sense of Farkas (1992b) (see 1.4.3.1). Such a form-meaning pairing is expected under the analysis of the subjunctive as a clausal mood. In the following sections, we will see that the shared properties of Romance and Slavic subjunctive-type complements are not just related to intensional semantics and distinctive morpho-syntactic marking, but to a number of other clausal areas as well.

2.2.2.2 Tense

Another distinctive clausal property, which has been widely observed with subjunctive complements in languages where the subjunctive is marked as a verbal mood, is related to tense:

subjunctive clauses across languages tend to exhibit what could be described as anaphoric or deficient tense, which is dependent on the tense of the matrix clause (Landau, 2004; Manzini, 2000; Picallo, 1985; Quer, 1998; Raposo, 1987). In this sense, subjunctives are closer to control infinitivals than they are to indicatives, which are associated with more independent temporal properties. One of the manifestations of this contrast is the fact that, in indicative complements, the embedded predicate can generally denote all types of temporal relations with respect to the reference time of the matrix predicate,³⁷ whereas in the case of subjunctives, the embedded

37 The notion of reference time is borrowed from Stowell (1993).

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predicate is typically restricted to a future-referring interval with respect to the matrix tense and, as a result, it cannot denote an event that took place prior to the one denoted by the matrix predicate. As we can see below, this contrast is well observed in Romance languages such as French (70) or Spanish (71).

(70) a. Je crois qu’ il est venu hier/ vient maintenant/ viendra demain.

I believe that he has come yesterday /comes now/ will-come tomorrow b. Je veux qu’ il vienne / * soit venu hier.

I want that he comeSUBJ / hasSUBJ come yesterday

(71) a. Creo que llegó ayer / está llegando ahora / llegará mañana.

believe1.sg. that came3.sg. yesterday / is coming now / will-come3.sg. tomorrow b. Quiero que vengas / * hayas venido ayer.

want1.sg. that come2.sg.SUBJ / have2.sg.SUBJ come yesterday

If subjunctive exists as a clausal mood in Slavic, one would expect Slavic subjunctive-type complements to exhibit the same temporal restrictions as the ones we just observed in the context of Romance. The Bulgarian (72), Russian (73) and Polish (74) examples below demonstrate that this is indeed the case:

(72) a. Mislja, che toi otide vchera / otiva dnes / shte otide utre.

think1.sg. IND he left yesterday / leaves today / will leave tomorrow b. Iskam toi da otide utre / * otide vchera.

want1.sg. he SUBJ leave3.sg. tomorrow / left3.sg. yesterday

(73) a. Ja dumaju, chto on ushel vchera / ukhodit segodnja / ujdiot zavtra.

I think IND he left yesterday / leaves today / will-leave tomorrow b. Ja hochu, chtoby on ushel zavtra / * on ushel vchera.

I want SUBJ he leave tomorrow / he left yesterday

(74) a. Mysle, ze on odszedl wczoraj / odchodzi dzisiaj / odejdzie jutro.

think1.sg. IND he left yesterday / leaves today / will-leave tomorrow

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b. Chce, zeby on odszedl jutro / * odszedl wczoraj.

want1.sg. SUBJ he leave tomorrow / left yesterday

The same property holds throughout all verb types given in (67-69): they are all associated with the same type of dependent tense restricted by the temporal coordinates of the matrix predicate, which is typical for subjunctive complements cross-linguistically.

2.2.2.3 Subject obviation

Another property that Slavic subjunctives will be shown to share with their Romance counterparts is related to the area of control and the referential properties of the embedded subject in subjunctive complements. In this context, it has been widely observed that typical subjunctive complements (i.e. intensional subjunctives) are cross-linguistically associated with an anti-control phenomenon known as subject obviation, which precludes the possibility of conjoint reference between the matrix and the embedded subject (Bouchard, 1984; Everaert, 1986; Farkas, 1992a; Manzini, 2000; Picallo, 1985; Ruwet, 1984). This is another area where subjunctive complements differ from indicatives, because the latter allow for an optionally co-referential embedded pro subject. The contrast is illustrated in the Romance examples below:

(75) a. Jeani pense qu’ ili/j viendra demain. (French) John thinks that he will-come tomorrow

‘John thinks that he will come tomorrow.’

b. Jeani veut qu’ il*i/j vienne demain.

John wants that he comeSUBJ tomorrow

‘John wants *(him) to come tomorrow.’

(76) a. Juani dice que (proi/j)vendrá mañana. (Spanish) John says that he will-come tomorrow

b. Juani quiere que (pro*i/j) venga mañana.

John wants that he comeSUBJ tomorrow

The same contrast can also be observed in a number of Slavic languages, as we can see in the examples below:

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(77) a. Ivani dumaet, chto oni/j pridiot zavtra. (Russian) John thinks IND he will-come tomorrow

b. Ivani hochet, chtoby on*i/j prishel zavtra.

John wants SUBJ he come tomorrow

(78) a. Jani mysli, ze (proi/j) odejdzie jutro. (Polish) John thinks IND he will-leave tomorrow

b. Jani chce, zeby (pro*i/j) odszedl jutro.

John wants SUBJ he leave tomorrow

Hence this is yet another common property that Slavic subjunctives share with their Romance verbal mood counterparts.³⁸

The data introduced here in 2.2 thus allow us to relate the Slavic subjunctive to its Romance counterpart in the context of the clausal-mood approach to the subjunctive, because Slavic subjunctives were shown to share a cluster of common formal, semantic and phonological properties with their verbal-mood counterparts in Romance: on a morpho-phonological level, they were both shown to be associated with distinctive overt marking (the only difference being that, unlike Romance, Slavic subjunctive is not marked through verbal morphology but through a separate, clause-initial item); semantically, Romance and Slavic subjunctives were shown to be associated with intensional-type predicates and the same range of irrealis-type modal meanings; they were shown to be associated with the same dependent temporal properties; and finally, they were shown to exhibit the same anti-control property of subject obviation. In the following sections, where I will put forward a more precise formal analysis of the subjunctive clause type in Romance and Slavic, we will observe a number of additional clausal properties that are shared by subjunctive complements in these two groups of languages, which will thus further reinforce the analysis of the Slavic subjunctive as a distinct clausal mood.

38 I should note, however, that the subject obviation property is not as uniformly observed across Slavic languages as the previous phenomena that we looked at here were. In some Slavic languages (particularly South Slavic ones), complements such as those in (75-78) do not exhibit obviation, as we will see in more detail later on in this chapter (Section 2.4 in particular). Nevertheless, the contrasts that we will observe in this context should not be seen as related to any type of essential difference in the inherent properties of the subjunctive clausal mood in Slavic as such. Instead, they will be shown to stem from some more general cross-linguistic phenomena related to the syntax of control, which will be described in more detail later on.

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