Romanian Subjunctive Compared with the Other Romance Languages

Subjunctive is the most complex mood in the Romance languages from a structural point of view. It shows a large diversity of uses. In the present study we have compared the use and values of this verbal mood among the major Romance languages, though sometimes some others have also been included (Galician, Catalan and Sardinian). It is interesting to notice that not all the languages show the same number of tenses and even that the origin of some of the tenses have different sources in Latin. Romanian is the main study target, and it is the starting point for the whole study. It will be seen that, despite all the differences, Romanian follows similar patterns to the rest of the Romance family. Even so, a specific peculiarity of Romanian syntax, the lack of infinitive in completive constructions, contrasts with the overdeveloped Portuguese conjugated infinitive. Apart from the analysis of the values and the uses, the study closes with a selection of chosen sentences in these six major languages allowing us to make conclusions as for the nature and behaviour of current subjunctive mood