I’m still struggling with result clauses. This is from De Bello Gallico (possibly abridged, I’m not sure)
Quae cum appropinquarent Britanniae et ex castris viderentur, tanta tempestas subito orta est, ut nulla earum cursum tenere posset, sed aliae eodem unde erant profectae referrentur, aliae ad inferiorem partem insulae, quae est proprius solis occasum, magno suo cum periculo dejicerentur.
So why the use of the imperfect subjunctive (posset, referrentur, dejicerentur) instead of the perfect subjunctive? The result is ‘actual’ and not ‘progressive’ (or at least I think so), the two principal reasons -as Qimmick was so kind to explain- to prefer the imperfect over the perfect subjunctive.
It seems to me this is the “progressive” use of the imperfect. As the Romans in the camp were watching from the shore, the ships were struggling unsuccessfully to hold their course as a result of the storm. Some were being carried back to where they came from, some were being tossed to the southwest.
The action is depicted as ongoing, placing the reader in the midst of the action. Using the imperfect in a narrative like this gives a more vivid picture, just as the imperfect indicative would in an independent clause. And the scene is unrolling before the eyes of the Roman soldiers on the British shore.
In the next sentence we have the perfect indicative petiuerunt, which tells us the ultimate outcome.
Thanks. That helps.
Still, wouldn’t it be helpful to see this as the normal consecutio temporum? It sure looks like it.
Mulling over this, it is hard to see why the subjunctive is used in result clauses in the first place, since they mostly contain statements of facts, and don’t share the subjunctive connotation normally associated with the subjunctive. Did the use of the subjunctive in these clauses perhaps develop out of these border cases between final and result clauses we discussed in an earlier thread (e.g. sic vitam egit ut omnes eum laudarent) and from there spread to all such clauses?
According to “A New Latin Syntax” (which is a book I highly recommend) the use of the subjunctive in result clauses developed out of the potential subjunctive. The author explains that the subjunctive was originally used in independent clauses and only later were certain constructions “frozen”. So, “he may trip, he’s running so fast” was two independent clauses with the first being a potential subjunctive. This use became so common that it was set in place. Eventually, the “potential” flavor of the subjunctive was lost in such a construction and it was reinterpreted as a cause/effect relationship. Once that happened it was irrelevant whether the action really occurred or was merely possible.
The “potential/hypothetical/unreal” aspect to the subjunctive really applies to its independent uses. As it became used more and more in subordinate clauses it started to lose that aspect and became a mark of subordination like “that” in the English “I know that…” That’s why the Romans themselves called it the conjunctivus/subjunctivus; the name assumes the main purpose of the mood is not to express something as hypothetical but to mark subordinate clauses in complex sentences (which was merely a later development).
In an earlier post, I think I quoted from Woodcock’s New Latin Syntax, which is a useful reference work. He explains the history of result clauses, as calvinist describes it. Latin came to use the subjunctive in result clauses in all cases, but originally the indicative was used in actual result clauses (as it is in Greek).
I really think that the traditional explanation–imperfect subjunctives in result clauses after a secondary main verb as a manifestation of the same sequence of tenses rules as purpose clauses and subordinate clauses in indirect discourse, with some exceptions–is misleading. I think that the distinction is between actual and potential result clauses. In potential result clauses, as Woodcock explains, the verb is imperfect. In actual result clauses, the tense is whatever tense of the subjunctive that would be used if the verb were indicative in an independent clause, which could be perfect if the result is seen as a completed event in the past, imperfect if the result is seen as an ongoing activity in the past (as in B.G. 4.28), or even present, if the result is a situation in the present.
In BG 4.28, the Roman soldiers are watching on the shore as the results of the storm–the actual results, not the potential results–are going on. This calls for the imperfect.