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October 4

What’s going on here?

On page 120 of The Everything Learning Latin Book by Richard E. Prior (part of Chapter 10: Grammatical Mood), it explicitly states that an imperfect subjunctive “always shows an action taking place at the same time or after the time of the main verb.” However, when the cum causal clause is introduced on page 125, the example is “Cum advenīret, laetī erāmus.” The cum causal clause is supposed to show what caused the main clause’s verb to happen, so it should happen before the main clause verb. Advenīret is an imperfect subjunctive, which the chapter earlier explicitly states to only be for when the subjunctive verb happens simultaneous to or after the main verb? I originally suspected it to just be an exception, but there are no clear examples of exceptions anywhere in the book. About every appearance of an imperfect subjunctive form in the book either follows this mentioned rule or doesn’t have a main verb (due to either being an independent subjunctive or being a present contrary to fact condition where the other is also an imperfect subjunctive and there is no main indicative verb), with the examples of the cum causal clause and (maybe) the cum concessive clause (shows that the main clause verb happened despite the subjunctive verb) on page 125 being the only deviations. What’s going on? Primal Groudon (talk) 04:22, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the rule can be saved if we think of the happiness as being instantaneous, with no appreciable amount of time elapsing between the arrival and the happiness. Cause and effect are concurrent in the examples given at Temporal clause (Latin) § Causal cum. --Lambiam 08:17, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar (by B.L. Gildersleeve and G. Lodge) says in section 585 (p.374): "Cum when (as) is used in narrative with the Imperfect Subjunctive of contemporaneous action, with the Pluperfect Subjunctive of antecedent action, to characterise the temporal circumstances under which an action took place." Of course, if cum simply means "then", then it should be followed by the indicative mood. AnonMoos (talk) 00:19, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fun fact: When the conjunction cum ins used for a temporal clause, it actually is followed by the indicative. It’s the other three types of cum clauses (circumstantial, causal, and concessive) that use the subjunctive. Primal Groudon (talk) 22:31, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]