In indirect discourse
Are amaturs esse and amaturus fuisse the same thing? (or maybe amaturus fuisse is future perfect subjunctive?
Thank you
Jim
Hi Jim, No they’re not the same thing. Here’s how it works.
spero eam me amaturam esse. I hope she’ll love me.
sperabam eam me amaturam esse. I hoped she’d love me.
putabam eam me amaturam esse. I thought she’d love me.
putabam eam me amaturam fuisse. I thought she’d have loved me.
So
putabam eam me amaturam esse. At the time, I thought she’d love me (at a later date) (but she still might some in the future)..
putabam eam me amaturam fuisse. I thought that she would have loved me at a future date, but she
never did.
FR 3302 B Wheelock XXX Perfect & Pluperfect Subjunctive
Quid Gāius facit? What is Gaius doing?
Quid Gāius fēcit? What did Gaius do?
Quid Gāius faciet? What will Gaius do?
Rogant quid Gāius faciat. They ask what Gaius is doing. Rogant quid Gāius fēcerit. They ask what Gaius did.
Rogant quid Gāius factūrus sit.
They ask what Gaius will do (lit., is about to do).
Rogāvērunt quid Gaius factūrus esset, they asked what Gaius would do (was about to do, was going to do).
*Rogāvērunt quid Gaius factūrus fuissit, they asked what Gaius would have done. (but in fact he never did), (This one not in Wheelock)
Hi Jim, You’ve now switched from indirect statement (acc.& infinitive) to indirect question, which uses subjunctive, and that’s not quite so simple. In “they asked what Gaius would have done” your factūrus fuissit is presumably meant for facturus fuisset (what he had been about to do) but I think Latin would be more likely just to use the pluperfect subjunctive fecisset for “what he would have done,” just as it would in direct speech. There are limits to Latin’s application of strict logic.(And Latin didn’t stay still. Tacitus’ Latin is not Cicero’s.)
But I’m in the throes of covid and my head’s messed up so I could be wrong.
Hi Jim, if you’ve already worked through unreal/counterfactual conditions in direct discourse (e.g. ‘if I was a superhero (but I’m not), then I would be flying over the Palatine hill right now’), then future pple + fuisse is simply how you put the ‘then’ clause (apodosis) in indirect discourse.
The same construction future pple + fuisse applies in indirect discourse whether the apodosis is present (imperf. subjunct. in direct discourse) or past (pluperf. subjunct. in direct discourse): you usually have to rely on the protasis to see whether it’s present or past (i.e. if the protasis is imperf. subjunct., then you can tell that future pple + fuisse represents an unreal apodosis in present time, i.e. imperf. subjunct.).
The go-to for all syntax questions for me is Woodock’s syntax (because it clearly shows the traces of someone who is from a Latin prose composition background). See e.g. the examples of unreal apodoses in indirect discourse in section 280 (i.e. look at the last column on page 235 linked below, under the entries 3 ‘present unreal’ and 6 ‘past unreal’):
https://archive.org/details/woodcock-e.-a-new-latin-syntax-1959/page/235/mode/1up
There is a deeper explanation over the page in sec. 282(2) which is worth reading:
https://archive.org/details/woodcock-e.-a-new-latin-syntax-1959/page/236/mode/1up
But really the best explanation I like is in Bradley’s Arnold sec. 472, which explains in a near way the fact that the form future pple + fuisse to substitute for the pluperf. subjunct. in unreal constructions in indirect discourse is a compromise:
https://archive.org/details/bradleysarnoldla0000arno/page/258/mode/1up
Cheers, Chad
thank you friends
Looks like I am getting ahead of myself again (typical!).
I haven’t learned about unreal/counterfactual conditions in direct discourse. etc.
(I’m sure it will come up soon).
And thank you for the good sources of explanations.
Back to the drawing board LOL
Jim