Subjunctive or Indicative using sospechar que?

Question

I suspect that she has a dog - Yo sospecho que ella tiene or tenga un perro.

Can anyone explain which to use? Is "Sospechar" a trigger phrase for using the subjunctive? - JessiBrink, Apr 5, 2012

Jessi,: Sospecho que tiene un perro, is enough, you can drop the pronouns. - annierats, Apr 5, 2012

Answer 1

I suspect that she has a dog - Yo sospecho que ella tiene or tenga un perro.

As mentioned above, both tiene and tenga are correct, depending on the situation. Let's go through them one by one.

Yo sospecho que ella TIENE un perro. I guess/suspect that she has got a dog. (positive nuance)

Yo sospecho que ella TENGA un perro. I doubt that she has got a dog. (negative nuance)

Hope that helped!

Answer 2

As caefuego says, indicative, I think this is because where there is strong doubt in the verb itself, such as creer or sospechar, that eliminates the need for the subjunctive.. I'm hopeless on grammar so I don't know why I'm writing this...

I have the opposite impression, i.e. that "strong doubt" is what would /cause/ a need for the subjunctive, but that phrases such as "creo que..." and "sospecho que..." express enough certainty to warrant the indicative. - whig, Apr 6, 2012

Oh, that's interesting, whig, to me they express uncertainty. Oh well, we live and learn. - annierats, Apr 6, 2012

Answer 3

After talking with a bunch of Spanish teachers at my school, we concluded that BOTH tiene & tenga are correct. It depends on the speaker's intent.

--> If I am 90% sure that she has a dog and there really isn't much doubt, then I will use tiene.
-->If I really have no clue and no background knowledge and it's just a wild guess that she has a dog...they I will use tenga.

Hope that helped some of you! Thanks for your help with the answers!

Answer 4

Indicativo: "tiene"

Answer 5

Si caes correct

Answer 6

tiene

Answer 7

It seems that the subjunctive can be used but the examples given all the 'de que' instead of just que. Anyone have any more light on this?

Plus this

Butt and Benjamin (1988: 228, 227) state that Creer 'believe' and similar verbs such as Parecer 'appear', Suponer 'suppose', and Sospechar 'suspect' may be followed by the subjunctive if there is hesitancy or what is stated is more hypothetical

Answer 8

In my opinion if I say "I suspect that he did it" then the indicative must be used because that is what I suspect or believe, "Sospecho que lo hizo él".

If I use the subjunctive then I am altering my assertion and actually saying something different like "he may have done it".

Answer 9

I would agree that either the indicative or the subjunctive could be used depending on how strongly, or not, the thing was suspected. I found a sample of this book online 'Representation of Cognitive Structures: Syntax and Semantics' and Page 258 and 259 at this link sheds some interesting light on the subject One thing I especially found interesting was that if the indicative was used the hearer could infer that the speaker perhaps had some proof that lead to their suspicions.