by Max Wheeler
(v) It used to be said that Catalan did not combine compound tenses (with haver) with progressive forms. However, examples like the following are increasingly found. To say these are calqued on English models would perhaps be an oversimplification.
Durant cinc anys he estat donant classes a estudiants de primer de carrera.
For five years I have been teaching first-year undergraduates.
18.2 OTHER VERBAL PERIPHRASES: GENERAL
Verbal periphrasis occurs in other constructions where a modal and a principal verb are combined to express a single verbal notion. The range considered here is divided according to whether the periphrasis operates with the infinitive (18.2.1) or the past participle (18.2.2) of the principal verb.
18.2.1 MODAL + INFINITIVE
Included here among the modal periphrases are the major verbal functions of reiteration (tornar a + infinitive), obligation (haver de + infinitive), probability (deure + infinitive; see 17.1.4i), ability/possibility (poder + infinitive), desire/ willingness (voler + infinitive). Examples:
No ho torneu a fer.
Don’t do it again.
No sé quan ens tornarem a veure.
I don’t know when we shall see one another again.
Hem de marxar avui.
We must leave today.
Hauries d’haver-ho fet abans.
You ought to have done it earlier.
Deu haver-hi una manera d’arreglar-ho.
There must be a way to sort it out.
Deuran arribar amb el tren de les cinc.
They must be arriving on the 5 o’clock train.
No puc dir-t’ho sense mirar l’agenda.
I can’t tell you without looking at my diary.
Les coses podrien haver resultat d’una altra manera.
Things could have turned out differently.
Vols venir amb mi?
Do you want to come with me?
Ells, però, no volien saber-ne res.
They didn’t want to know anything about it, though.
(The obligatory sense of haver de is sometimes very dilute, and this periphrasis can thus express an emphatic future meaning:
Demà se n’han d’anar a Brussel·les. Tomorrow they’ll be off to Brussels.)
Saber + infinitive ‘know how (to do something)’ belongs to this category of periphrasis, sometimes translating ‘be able’/‘can’. It is differentiated from poder + infinitive in that it denotes mental/intellectual capacity or a skill, rather than physical ability. The distinction can be seen in the following pair of sentences:
No puc nedar.
I can’t swim (e.g., because I’ve got a broken leg).
No sé nedar, perquè de petit no me’n van ensenyar.
I can’t swim, because I wasn’t taught to when I was little.
Other periphrases add specific nuances to the basic meaning of a main verb:
Rompre a (near-synonym of començar/posar-se/arrencar a) + infinitive means ‘begin suddenly’, ‘break into’:
De sobte rompé a plorar. She suddenly burst into tears/burst out crying.
Llavors van rompre a cantar. Then they broke into song.
Estar a punt de + infinitive means ‘be about to’, ‘be nearly’:
L’aigua deu estar a punt de bullir. The water must be nearly boiling.
Estàvem a punt de sortir quan va sonar el telèfon.
We were about to go out when the phone rang.
Estar per + infinitive expresses an event that still remains to be done (so that the meaning may come close to estar a punt de), with various idiomatic equivalents in English:
Les patates encara estan per pelar.
The potatoes haven’t been peeled yet/still haven’t been peeled.
Estic per dir-li-ho.
I’m ready to tell him.
L’autocar de Perpinyà està per arribar.
The Perpignan coach hasn’t come in yet/is due now.
Anar a + infinitive serves mainly to express imminent or intended action in the past:
Anava a dir que … I was going to say that…
Use of the periphrastic anar a + infinitive ‘be going to’ is nothing like as extensive or as natural as it is in English or in the other Romance languages. This is in part because of the vigour of the periphrastic preterite (see 16.5.6.2) whose auxIIIary derives from forms of anar and coincides with them in several parts. Best advice is to stay with the simple future, except for the instances considered below. So:
Ara us diré el que penso fer. (not *Ara us vaig a dir …)
I’m now going to tell you what I intend to do.
La comissió es reunirà d’aquí a pocs dies, (not *La comissió va a reunir-se …)
The committee is going to meet in a few days’ time.
For the reasons just explained, and as remarked above, haver de + infinitive can perform as a (stressed) periphrastic future:
Què n’han de pensar els veïns?
What are the neighbours (going) to think?
Ha de ser molt dura la seva resposta.
Their response is going to be very tough.
Otherwise anar a + infinitive can be used to express a future event when an idea of actual physical motion (or the imminence thereof) is involved:
Anava a treure el cotxe, però de sobte se’m va acudir de cridar un taxi.
I was going to get the car out, but it suddenly occurred to me to call a taxi.
Semblava que anés a caure.
It looked as though she was going to fall.
Note that in these examples, as in Anava a dir que … above, anar a + infinitive is mostly used in the past imperfect, and often carries the implication ‘was going to (but didn’t)’.
Venir a + infinitive translates ‘add up to’, ‘amount to’, ‘turn out to’:
La conclusió, doncs, ve a ser la mateixa.
The conclusion, then, turns out to be the same.
Tot plegat et vindrà a costar un dineral.
All told it will cost you a packet.
Pensar + infinitive is very commonly used for ‘intend to’:
No penso fer-ho fins demà.
I don’t intend doing it until tomorrow.
Quan penses enllestir aquest capítol?
When do you intend to finish this chapter?
Arribar a + infinitive covers a range of idioms associated with the idea of ‘reach the point of’:
Això encara no arriba a ser una solució satisfactòria.
That still doesn’t amount to a satisfactory solution.
La seva actitud m’arribava a irritar.
Their attitude was coming to irritate me.
Que n’arriba a ser, de talòs!
How dim he is!/How dim can you get?
No ho arribo a entendre.
I can’t understand it.
‘Become’ can be translated by arribar a ser (see 30.6vi(b)).
Acabar de + infinitive (occurring only in the present and imperfect tenses) has the meaning of ‘have just + past participle’:
S’acaba de declarar el resultat. The result has just been declared.
Acabaven de treure el pa del forn. They had just taken the bread out of the oven.
This construction should not be confused with use of no acabar de + infinitive, which qualifies the main verb with the idea of ‘not quite’, ‘not fully’:
No ho acabo d’entendre.
I still don’t understand it./I just don’t understand it.
No els acabava d’agradar.
They didn’t really like it.
Fer + infinitive means ‘make or have (something) done’, ‘something’ being the situation of the infinitive. See 25.5:
No em facis plorar. Don’t make me cry.
Han fet pintar el menjador. They have had the dining room painted.
(Note how the infinitive can acquire passive meaning in periphrases involving acabar de and fer: pa acabat de fer ‘freshly baked bread’, fer netejar la sala
‘have the room cleane
d’, fer-se fer un suèter de punt ‘have a sweater knitted’.)
18.2.1.1 Weak object pronouns in verbal periphrases
Verbal periphrasis involving auxIIIary or modal + gerund and auxIIIary or modal + infinitive allows optional mobility of any associated pronominal clitics. These can be positioned either proclitically (before the conjugated auxIIIary) or enclitically (attached to the gerund or infinitive), as is described in 12.2.3 and 12.9.4. In general enclitic forms appear more formal; however, many subtle factors appear to affect choice of position, without any discernible alteration of meaning or emphasis. Balearic varieties strongly prefer the proclitic alternative, and this is the tendency in spontaneous speech more generally:
Ens estan prenent el pèl. = Estan prenent-nos el pèl.
They’re pulling our leg.
Hi acaba d’arribar. = Acaba d’arribar-hi.
He has just arrived (there).
The position of pronominal clitics in periphrases with the past participle, discussed in 18.2.2, is always proclitic.
18.2.2 AUXIIIARY + (PAST) PARTICIPLE
This class includes the compound past tenses with haver (also dialectally ésser, sometimes tenir: 16.5.12,17.2 and 21.1.2).
The verbs deixar ‘leave’, quedar ‘stay’, and restar ‘stay’ introduce the participle in periphrases which focus a past event in terms of consequence:
Les seves paraules em van deixar parat.
Her words left me bewildered.
Les negociacions han quedat interrompudes.
The negotiations have been interrupted.
La pedra rodolà muntanya avall fins a restar clavada entre dos arbres.
The stone rolled down the mountain until it wedged itself between two trees.
The passive voice (ser + past participle: see 29.1.1–4) and the associated construction with estar + past participle (30.5) can also be thought of as belonging to this group of verbal periphrases.
19 THE SUBJUNCTIVE
19.1 GENERAL
The forms of the subjunctive mood are widely used in Catalan, and the principles governing their use are not always easy to grasp, at least for speakers of English which has nothing really comparable. Various areas and instances of use of the subjunctive are covered elsewhere in relation to particular grammatical features (such as Chapter 15, conjunctions; Chapter 17, contrasts with the indicative mood; Chapter 26, negation; Chapter 28, negative imperatives; Chapter 31, relative clauses; Chapter 32, complement clauses; Chapter 33, adverbial clauses; Chapter 34, conditional sentences). This central chapter is thus to be read in conjunction with the other chapters or sections referred to.
As the name implies, the subjunctive is mostly found in subordinate clauses (19.2–5). Use of the subjunctive in main clauses is discussed in section 19.6.
Much ink has been spilt in the attempt to identify a ‘core meaning’ of the subjunctive mood in Catalan and related languages. What we say here necessarily oversimplifies, but is intended as a frame of reference to guide the user. The subjunctive has been described as the mood of non-assertion or of inactuality. A speaker may use the subjunctive when he or she is not committed to the truth of the proposition in question in the current context of discourse. This non-commitment to truth may arise from several sources. The speaker may doubt the truth of the proposition, may entertain it as a wish to be fulfilled in the future, may be unable to ascertain the truth of the proposition, may be mentioning it only to recall another speaker’s statement, may hold the proposition as hypothetical. Part of the difficulty arises from the fact that none of these circumstances necessarily of itself requires the use of the subjunctive, or excludes the use of the indicative. In some cases the selection of the subjunctive or of the indicative corresponds primarily to grammatical convention. In the following sections we shall devote most attention to those grammatical contexts where there is a choice.
19.2 THE SUBJUNCTIVE IN COMPLEMENT CLAUSES
A complement clause (32.1) is introduced by the complementizer que ‘that’; it may be the subject or object of a main verb, or in apposition to a noun phrase, as in la idea que … ‘the idea that… ’, el fet que … ‘the fact that’. It is likely to take the subjunctive when the speaker is not committed to asserting that the content of the que clause is factual, that it actually is the case in the speaker’s current mental model.
19.2.1 ‘THEMATIC’ SUBJUNCTIVE
The subjunctive is generally used in complement clauses which precede the main verb:
Que en Xavier festegi amb la Núria no vol dir res.
The fact that Xavier is going out with Núria doesn’t mean anything. or Xavier’s going out with Núria doesn’t mean anything.
Que trobés a faltar Anna era una cosa, i passar sense cap dona n’era una altra.
That I missed Anna was one thing, but doing without a woman at all was another.
Que el secret no s’hagi divulgat és la millor prova que és, en suma, un secret.
The fact that the secret hasn’t been spread is the best proof that it is, in fact, a secret.
In these examples the speaker in fact presupposes the truth of the que clause; but asserting the truth of it is not the point of the utterance. Rather the focus is on the significance of ‘Xavier’s going out with Núria’, ‘my missing Anna’, ‘the lack of diffusion of the secret’. (Notice that a similar effect is often produced in English by using a gerund or a nominalizing noun phrase rather than a clause.) The que clause reminds the hearer of something they already know in order to make some comment on it. In superficially similar contexts the indicative may appear:
Que ella coneixia els maneigs de l’Agustí disposant de la seva fortuna … ja fa temps que se sabia.
That she was aware of Agustí’s manoeuvres disposing of her fortune had been known for some time.
Que les coses han de canviar en l’àmbit autonòmic ho admeten fins i tot els presidents socialistes.
That things have to change in the autonomy sphere is admitted even by socialist prime ministers.
Here the function of the indicative in the que clause is either to present information which is in fact new to the hearer, or to confirm by repetition.
The same considerations affect choice of mood in clauses in apposition to el fet, la idea, whether they precede or follow the main verb. The subjunctive backgrounds the information in the que clause:
Potser el fet que no s’haguessin presentat, que cap dels dos no conegués el nom de l’altre, la tallava.
Perhaps the fact that they hadn’t been introduced, that neither of them knew the other’s name, inhibited her. (the main point is her inhibition)
No m’avenia al fet que em derrotés un detall tan insignificant.
I couldn’t get over the fact that I should have been beaten by such an insignificant detail.
or I couldn’t come to terms with my being beaten …
The indicative, in contrast, foregrounds the que clause, presenting it as new information:
El que sorprèn modernament és el fet que la comunitat femenina es dividia en tres grups diferents.
What surprises us nowadays is the fact that the female community was divided into three different groups, (the main point is the division of the community into three groups, a fact which is, in addition, surprising)
El fet que el cos fou trobat flotant vora la Barrière, no prova pas el lloc on fou llançat a l’aigua.
The fact that the body was found floating off la Barrière does not indicate the place where it was thrown into the water.
19.2.2 SUBJUNCTIVE IN EMOTIVE CONTEXTS
In que clauses dependent on verbs (or other expressions) of emotion or evaluation the subjunctive is very common. Such verbs are alegrar-se ‘be glad’, convenir ‘be appropriate’, doldre ‘sadden’, empipar ‘annoy’, emprenyar ‘annoy’, estranyar ‘surprise’, molestar ‘bother’, saber greu ‘regret’, sentir ‘regret’, sorprendre ‘surprise’; other expressions include ser llàstima ‘be a pity’, ser interessant ‘be interesting’, s
er significatiu ‘be significant’, estar content ‘be pleased’. As in earlier examples, the content of the que clause is presupposed to be true, but is presented to the hearer/reader as the cause of the emotive or evaluative reaction:
Em molesta que vulgui justificar la política mantinguda pels Estats Units a Amèrica Central.
I am annoyed that he tries to justify the policy of the United States in Central America.
Li sap greu que en Carles no hagi assistit al concert.
She is sorry that Carles wasn’t at the concert.
No li sap greu que en Carles no hagi assistit al concert.
She isn’t sorry that Carles wasn’t at the concert.
Li sap greu que en Carles no hagi assistit al concert?
Is she sorry that Carles wasn’t at the concert?
L’estrany és que no el canonitzessin.
The surprising thing is that they did not canonize him.
M’esgarrifo de pensar que algú pugui arribar a pertorbar la pau d’una casa.
I’m horrified to think that anyone could manage to disrupt the tranquillity of a household.
Less commonly, the indicative is found. As before, its use asserts new information, alongside the emotional or evaluative comment:
És sorprenent que avui, de sobte, en plena boutique londinenca de Chelsea en retrobo l’atmosfera.
