Selected vs. non-selected subjunctive (Subj1 vs. Subj2)

The idea that there are different types of subjunctive clauses in subordinate contexts, which can be distinguished in terms of selection, is not new to this study. For instance, a well-known distinction that has been widely observed in the cross-linguistic literature on the subjunctive in this context is the one between intensional subjunctive complements,⁴ which is the type of subjunctive we already observed in (1) (reproduced below), and the so-called polarity subjunctives, which typically appear under epistemic predicates when the latter are negated or questioned, as in (6-7).

(1) a. Je veux que tu viennes. (French) I want that you come2.sg.SUBJ

‘I want you to come.’

4 Term taken from Farkas (1985; 1992b).

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b. Ordenó que vengas. (Spanish) ordered3.sg. that come2.sg.SUBJ

‘He ordered you to come.’

(6) a. Je ne crois pas qu’ il soit parti. (French) I neg. believe not that he hasSUBJ left

‘I don’t believe he left.’

b. Je ne pense pas qu’ il puisse venir demain.

I neg. think not that he canSUBJ comeINF tomorrow

‘I don’t think he can come tomorrow.’

(7) a. No creo que venga mañana. (Spanish) not believe1.sg. that come3.sg.SUBJ tomorrow

‘I don’t believe she will come tomorrow.’

b. No pienso que sea el culpable.

not think1.sg. that be3.sg.SUBJ the culprit

‘I don’t think he is the culprit.’

Various authors (Farkas, 1992b; Quer, 1998; Stowell, 1993 a.o.) have suggested that the difference between subjunctive complements such as those in (6-7) and those in (1) should be viewed through the prism of selection: while intensional subjunctives (a term I will continue to employ throughout this dissertation when referring to complements such as those in (1)) are lexically selected by the matrix predicate, polarity subjunctives should not be seen as selected by the matrix verb per se. This becomes obvious in light of the examples in (8), where we can observe that, in the absence of a non-veridical matrix operator such as negation, epistemic verbs like think or believe typically introduce the indicative, not the subjunctive mood in the embedded clause.⁵

5 One Romance language which constitutes a strong exception in this context is Italian, because it introduces the subjunctive with epistemic verbs more widely, regardless of the presence or absence of a non-veridical polarity operator in the matrix clause (Farkas, 1985; Giorgi, 2009). I will not address this issue here, given that Italian or Romance in general are not my main focus.

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(8) a. Je pense qu’ il vient demain. (French)

I think that he comesIND tomorrow

‘I think he is coming tomorrow.’

b. Creo que llega hoy. (Spanish) believe1.sg. that arrive3.sg.IND today

‘I believe she arrives today.’

Therefore, it is clear that the subjunctive mood in the embedded clause is less closely related to the lexical properties of the matrix predicate in polarity subjunctives than it is in intensional subjunctives, where the introduction of the indicative mood in the embedded clause always results in ungrammaticality:

(9) a. * Je veux que tu viens. (French)

I want that you comeIND

b. * Ordenó que vienes. (Spanish)

ordered3.sg. that come2.sg.IND

Hence the contrast between subjunctives such as those in (1) and those in (6-7) in terms of selection by the matrix predicate is rather straightforward.

Here I will propose to extend the observed distinction between intensional and polarity subjunctives in terms of selection to all cases of subordination where subjunctive mood appears:

on the one hand, we have subjunctives that are selected by the matrix predicate under a separate subjunctive CP clause type; on the other hand, we have those complements where the subjunctive mood is not lexically selected by the matrix predicate, but introduced through a different syntactic mechanism under a different type of embedded clause. In addition to polarity subjunctives, the non-selected cases of subjunctive subordination will also be claimed to involve complements such as those that are used to express possibilities (10-11), doubts (12), as well as subjunctive complements associated with a factive interpretation (13-14):

(10) Es possible que venga mañana. (Spanish)

is possible that come3.sg.SUBJ tomorrow

‘It is possible that he will come tomorrow.’

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(11) Il semble qu’ il ne veuille pas venir. (French) it seems that he neg. wantSUBJ not comeINF

‘It seems that he doesn’t want to come.’

(12) Je doute qu’il soit capable de le faire. (French) I doubt that he isSUBJ capable to it doINF

‘I doubt that he is capable to do it.’

(13) Lamento que no vengas. (Spanish)

regret1.sg. that not come2.sg.SUBJ

‘I am sorry that you are not coming.’

(14) Je comprends qu’il ne veuille pas le faire. (French) I understand that he neg. wantSUBJ not it doINF

‘I understand that he doesn’t want to do it.’

Even though subjunctive complements in (10-14) seem to be more closely related with the lexical properties of the matrix predicate than polarity subjunctives in (6-7), because there is no additional element in the matrix clause other than the predicate that can be claimed to govern the use of the subjunctive (unlike with polarity subjunctives in (6-7), where the subjunctive use is clearly favored by the presence of matrix negation), I will claim that they are in fact not selected. Hence, I will make a broad distinction between subjunctives such as those in (1), on the one hand, and those in (6-7) and (10-14), on the other. In order to simplify the presentation, from this point onwards I will refer to the former group, i.e. selected subjunctives, as Subj(unctive)1 and to the latter, i.e. non-selected ones, as Subj(unctive)2.

There are several types of syntactic criteria that can be used in order to justify the Subj1 vs. Subj2 distinction that I just proposed. The most important one, noted by Farkas (1992b), has to do with the obligatory vs. variable use of subjunctive marking in a given complement.

As we already observed in (9), when the subjunctive is selected by the matrix predicate (i.e.

Subj1), the introduction of a different mood category in the embedded clause results in ungrammaticality. On the other hand, when it comes to Subj2 contexts, one observes more variation in embedded mood choice, both within a given language as well as

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linguistically. In the examples below, we can observe some cases of intra-linguistic variability between the use of the subjunctive and the use of the indicative in Subj2 cases:

(15) a. Je ne crois pas qu’ il est venu. (French) I neg. believe not that he hasIND come

b. Je ne crois pas qu’ il soit venu.

I neg. believe not that he hasSUBJ come

‘I don’t think that he came.’

(16) a. Parece que llueve. (Spanish)

seem3.sg. that rain3.sg.IND

‘It seems that it is raining.’

b. Parece que llueva.

seem3.sg. that rain3.sg.SUBJ

‘It seems as if it were raining.’

(Quer, 2009: 1781)

(17) a. Je comprends qu’il est venu. (French)

I understand that he hasIND come

‘I understand that he came.’

b. Je comprends qu’ il ne veille pas venir.

I understand that he neg. wantSUBJ not comeINF

‘I understand that he doesn’t want to come.’

As we can see in (15-17), subjunctive complements previously defined as Subj2- e.g. polarity subjunctives (15), epistemic subjunctives (16) and factive-type subjunctives (17)- can be replaced with indicatives without producing ungrammaticality, unlike their Subj1 counterparts in (9).⁶ This is the primary reason why it makes sense to distinguish between these two types of subjunctives in terms of selection: in Subj1 contexts, the introduction of the indicative is

6 Note, however, that one can generally observe some nuance interpretative differences depending on which mood appears in the embedded clause (which can be gauged from some of the glosses beneath the examples as well).

The interpretative shifts that can be observed in this context will, in fact, be seen as the primary motivation for the introduction of subjunctive morphology in such cases. I will leave this issue to the side for the moment and come back to it towards the end of the dissertation (Chapter 6), once I focus specifically on Subj2-type complements, which will not feature prominently in this study because they are less productive in Slavic (see (19-20)).

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banned because it produces a clash with the selectional requirements of the matrix predicate, given that the latter requires a subjunctive clausal complement; in Subj2 contexts, one observes a greater degree of variability because subjunctive per se is not selected by the matrix predicate.

In addition to the intra-linguistic contrasts we just observed between Subj1 and Subj2-type complements when it comes to variability in subjunctive use, one can also observe a similar distinction cross-linguistically. Various authors (Farkas, 1992b; Kempchinsky, 2009 a.o.) have noted that the most stable use of subjunctive across languages is associated with complements of the type exemplified in (1), i.e. intensional Subj1 complements: basically any language that contains a subjunctive mood will employ subjunctive-type morphology in clauses of this type.

On the other hand, complements defined as Subj2 exhibit much more variation in subjunctive use across languages. One example of the differences in cross-linguistic distribution of Subj1 and Subj2, which is particularly relevant for my study, involves Slavic languages themselves.

The latter robustly employ the subjunctive-type construction in the context of Subj1 complements, as we can observe in (18) below, but Slavic counterparts of Romance Subj2 complements generally ban the use of subjunctive marking, and only allow for the indicative mood to appear in the embedded clause, which can be observed thanks to the grammaticality contrasts in (19-20):⁷⁸

7 As we can observe from the glosses, Slavic subjunctives are morphologically distinguished from indicatives in a different fashion than their counterparts in Romance (or most other) languages. As I already briefly hinted earlier on in 1.1, Slavic subjunctive is not marked verbally but via mood markers that appear on the left periphery of the clause. For the moment, I will leave the issue of the precise morpho-syntactic realization of the Slavic subjunctive to the side (it will be adressed in detail later on in 2), and only focus on the cross-linguistic differences related to subjunctive (Subj2) distribution.

8 Note, however, that some Subj2-type complements can be observed in certain Slavic languages as well, in particular the polarity subjunctives of the type exemplified in (6-7), but Subj2 in general is much less extant in Slavic. Some of the underlying reasons for the differences in Subj2 distribution (including in the context of different Slavic languages) will be adressed towards the end of the dissertation in Chapter 6, which will focus specifically on Subj2-type complements.

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b. * Kazhetsja chtoby on prishel vchera.

seem3.sg. SUBJ he came yesterday

‘It seems he came yesterday.’

(20) a. Suzhaljavam che Ivan ne dojde. (Bulgarian)

regret1.sg. IND John not come3.sg.

b. * Suzhaljavam da Ivan ne dojde.

regret1.sg. SUBJ John not come3.sg.

‘I regret that John didn’t come.’

(Krapova, 2002:110)

As we can observe in (19-20b), the use of subjunctive marking in Subj2-type environments generally produces ungrammaticality in Slavic. Slavic subjunctive is thus more restricted to Subj1-type complementation when it comes to its distribution.

As a result, the analysis of the subjunctive that I will propose in this thesis will primarily center on Subj1 complements, especially in those parts of the dissertation that focus specifically on Slavic subjunctive (Chapters 2-5), whereas Subj2 will only be dealt with in chapters that approach the subjunctive from a more cross-linguistic perspective (primarily 1 and 6). The following section will present some of the problematic aspects related more specifically to Subj1 complementation, which will be more relevant in the context of my study of Slavic subjunctive later on. Even though Subj1 complements of the type we observed so far- i.e.

intensional subjunctives- are associated with relatively coherent, irrealis-type semantics that one typically observes with the subjunctive mood across languages, we will go on to observe that Subj1 clause type also subsumes some instances of subjunctive complementation that are more problematic from a semantic point of view.