The Subjunctive and Reported Speech
Just wondering if the subjunctive is ever used with reported speech if it's contrary to the fact etc?
Eg - You were at a party last week expecting your friend Maria to be there and when you see her later in the week you ask her what happened because, as you tell her "John said you were coming" - would it be: 'Juan dijo que ibas a venir.', or 'Juan dijo que fueras a venir.' ?
5 Answers
Reported speech is normally done in indicative, because you are transcribing what the other person said, so it is a clear declaration (you are communicating what you know). "Juan dijo que ibas a venir" is practically identical to "Juan said: "You are coming"".
I can't think right now of a situation with reported speech where the subjunctive would be justified... or make sense at all.
In other words, if you are reporting something that was originally expressed in the subjunctive, why wouldn't you put it in the imperfect subjunctive?
Because that would be direct speech, and you'd use the tense used by the person:
Juan dijo: "Espero que venga"
"Dijo", a verb used to declare what someone did. If you use subjunctive -any subjunctive tense-, you would be denying that declaration for some weird reason, as if you really did not have any intention to let other people what he said. Making it in imperfect will make it even worse, because it would sound as if -on top of refusing to acknowledging what he said-, it was all made up or unreal.
Hmm, pues yo puedo pensar en unos cuantos ejemplos:
No te dije que te fueras sino que te quedaras.
Pepe te pidió que te fueras.
Quizás solo con imperativo, Marie claire.
'Juan dijo que ibas a venir. :- )
I can't think right now of a situation with reported speech where the subjunctive would be justified... or make sense at all.
Why wouldn't you say:
Juan dijo que esperaba que viniera.
In other words, if you are reporting something that was originally expressed in the subjunctive, why wouldn't you put it in the imperfect subjunctive?
