From Indicative to Subjunctive in these sentences
Why the change from the indicative "quiero" in sentence 1 below to the subjunctive "quiera" in the second sentence (sentences from Spanish lessons I was doing)?
Tengo hambre y en el refrigerador encontré algo que quiero comer.
(photo context: girl smiling and speaking while looking in the refrigerator)
Tengo hambre. Sin embargo, en el refrigerador no hay nada que quiera comer.
(photo context: girl frowning and speaking while looking in the refrigerator)
If there is any sort of grammar rule that explains this, I would appreciate any information about it. Thank you.
3 Answers
Notice that the main clause may as well stand alone and still have a full meaning:
Sin embargo, en el refrigerador no hay nada.
But when you have a subordinate clause, it will have to be in subjunctive to be grammatically correct, since it's been "conditioned" by the negation in the main clause. That will happen when you negate the action of a verb followed by que as a conjunction:
Son ellos
No son ellos
Creo que son ellos
No creo que sean ellos
You can have almost two identical sentences using both modes (indicative and subjunctive) as follows:
Tengo hambre y en el refrigerador encontré algo que quiero comer.
Tengo hambre y en el refrigerador no encontré nada que quiera comer.
As you can see, the second phrase uses the subjunctive because you could not find anything appealing enough to eat in the refrigerator, therefore the subjunctive expresses your subjective feeling about it. What may not be appealing to you may be for somebody else in your household.
The first phrase is factual. You were hungry, went into the fridge and found something you would like to eat. Period.
I hope this helps!
That is an excellent way of stating it:
....since it's been "conditioned" by the negation in the main clause. That will happen when you negate the action of a verb followed by que as a conjunction....
The conditioning in effect requires the non-real. Very clear.
