Do I describe it with the subjunctive?
Me sorprende que haya muchos animals que coman / comen esa comida?
Do I use the subjunctive for "comer" since it is an impersonal expression?
15 Answers
"Haya" is OK, but the subjunctive is not needed for "comer" Leave it in the indicative because hay muchos animales que comen esa comida and someone is surprised by it.
Me sorprende que haya muchos animales que comen esa comida
I think both are ok 
The subjunctive can be very confusing if it is explained in terms of arbitrary rules instead of understanding why it is used. Indicative is used in syntactically independent phrases or sentences to provide information you assume to be likely or true, whereas subjunctive mentions things that complete the meaning of the main sentence without specifying whether it is true or without meaning to provide new information.
- [Creo] [que vienen]: You communicate two ideas with indicative: you "think something" (creo) and "they are coming" (vienen)
- [No creo] [que vengan]: You communicate that "think something" (creo), but you are just mentioning the idea that "they are coming", because that is not the case. Indicative here would be weird, because "No creo que vienen" would be saying that the same time that you believe they are coming (vienen) and that you don't believe it (no creo). Now, stretching the limits of the language, you can say "No creo que vienen" if the latter part of the sentence is a quote from someone who just stated that "they are coming" and you are contradicting the other person, but in most normal circumstances, it would sound wrong.
Now your sentence is more interesting, because it has nested subordination (“doble subordinación” in Spanish grammars.) There is a subordinate clause within another subordinate clause:
- Me sorprende [que haya muchos animales (que coman esa comida) ]
When you are commenting about facts, such as "It surprises/puzzles/amazes/disgusts me...," the thing you are commenting on is generally a topic previously introduced in the conversation, and therefore, is generally mentioned with subjunctive, not indicative, eg. “Me sorprende que no haya venido aún,” where the idea of someone not having arrived yet is not new information you want to communicate, but something already assumed, and just mentioned using subjunctive.
An isolated sentence like "Hay muchos (animales que comen esa comida)" clearly communicates two ideas, so "comen" is a correct choice within the first subordinate clause (the one in square brackers,) making “comen” the obvious choice of mood in the overall sentence. However, there are many cases in which the main sentence (“Me sorprende…”) supersedes the middle verb (“haya”) and can alter the choice of mood of the second subordinate (“coman”). Notice that your sentence would have not been that different if you had said:
- Me sorprende [que muchos animales coman esa comida]
Despite the syntactic differences between the sentences, the main idea is practically the same, so subjunctive within the 2nd subordinate (“coman”) is perfectly normal if you consider the semantic influence of the main sentence. In fact, there are cases where the influence is so strong, that subjunctive is generally preferred:
- No es posible [que piensen (que haya ocurrido) ]
Yes, you could perfectly use indicative here, but some people often feel that it is a bit strange to communicate with indicative that “it has happened” (“ha ocurrido”) within the same sentence where you start denying such thing with “No es possible.” Notice that other native speakers might disagree of what's their preferred choice here.
On the other hand, there are other factors (I won´t go into here) that could prevent the main sentence from overriding the mood of the second subordinate, keeping the subordination rules more strict. A sentence like “Sé (que has venido)” demands indicative due to its communicative nature, so it makes sense to say:
- Me alegra [saber (que has venido) ]
However, “Me alegra saber que hayas venido” (??) sounds awful, unlike “Me alegra que hayas venido”, which is perfect. Unfortunately, there are several studies about this, and no simple and reliable rules have been found, to my knowledge, only a list of patterns, but the explanations are mostly based on how native speakers perceive meaning.
If you are not sure, determine the mood by the phrase or sentence it is directly subordinated to, and as your Spanish improves and it feels more natural to you, you´ll get used to overriding the modal choice of the 2nd (or 3rd, 4th…) subordinate. For more detail, search for “doble subordinación” and “cláusula superregente” (the main sentence.)
Conclusion: “comen” is definitely correct, but “coman” feels even more natural if you ask me, and this phenomenon of double subordination, using subjunctive where one would expect indicative, is not regarded as incorrect anyway.
I have previously read research papers on subjunctive vs. indicative where the researchers asked a number of Spanish speaking university students which verb they would use in a variety of sentences. In some cases there was a 90/10 split. In other cases, even though there was a clear rule which would indicate the correct verb in grammar books, the students were split nearly 50/50.
Then they interviewed them about their choices. In many cases they didn't know the rules, but their reasons for subjunctive vs. indicative often seemed quite logical and rose from the different ways they were thinking about the situation posed in the sentence. And their choice of mood often seemed appropriate given their state of mind and offered the right "shade" of meaning. Which just goes to show that sometimes the choice of indicative or subjunctive can really just boil down to the "mood" of the speaker, right?
I think that here is the answer to this thread. The speaker tends to pick the alternative that better fits his or her communicational needs. In this sentence here I don't believe that it has to do with "subjunctive contamination" but with an emphasis on the surprise the information produced. Basically, both the subjunctive and the indicative may be used depending on emphatic reasons.
I agree with Dani.
Me sorprende que haya muchos animalscolor> que coman / comen esa comida?color>
Haya is appropriate because if follows the subjunctive trigger "Me sorprende que"
The words in blue is an adjective clause which modifies the words in red. It operates similar to an adjective....there are big horses and little horses. There are animals who eat this food and animals who don't.
Adjective clauses should go in the indicative when the speaker knows that such a thing exists. The fact the he is surprised about their existence is irrelevant to the adjective clause. The emotional reaction trigger should only affect the subordinate clause immediately following "Me sorprende que" Adjective clauses should go in the subjunctive when they deny the existence of such things, express skepticism or doubt that such a thing exists or mention something hypothetical.
In this case, from the context of the sentence it seems clear that they person now knows that there are animals who eat this food, so comen should be used.
So, as Dani said:
Me sorprende que haya muchos animals que comen esa comida.
I have read of something referred to as "subjunctive contamination" which states that some Spanish speakers, once the subjunctive is triggered in one clause, tend to stick with it too long in subsequent phrases and would use coman here. I have no idea how common this is. I also don't know if this "contamination" primarily effects non-natives, Spanish speaking youth or what. It would be interesting to know and if natives have ever even heard of such as thing.
Update: The above is just my opinion / analysis and I am not a native speaker so don't "take it to the bank." Astotxua, an expert on such things from Spain, has stated that the only correct form of the final verb is in the subjunctive. Stay tuned, we may sort it out, but so far, if you're primarily interested in "common usage" it appears that the native speakers here are about evenly divided on the issue. It'd even possible that either one would not sound too strange to many native speakers.
Dilken.
En frases de relativo se usa el indicativo cuando el referente es conocido o específico
Maria tiene un perro que come lechuga.(perro determinado, el de Maria)
Se usa el sudjuntivo Cuando el referente es desconocido, en negaciones , en preguntas y para indicar escasez.
Maria quiere un perro que coma lechuga.( perro desconocido. Será conocido cuando Maria lo tenga).
No sé de ningún perro que coma lechuga.(negación )
¿hay algún perro que coma lechuga? (Pregunta)
Hay pocos perros que coman lechuga.(escasez)
Me sorprende que haya animales que coman ésta comida.
Me sorprende que => sudjuntivo (haya)
Relativo a Animales desconocidos => sudjuntivo ( coman)
I hope this helps. I'm sorry but I'am traveling and I have not enought time to do it in English
No estoy de acuerdo chicos.
En éste caso la frase va acompañada de un frase de relativo . Y en las frases de relativo el sudjuntivo es obligatorio cuando se refiere a algo desconocido y el hecho de ser sorprendido por algo ya indica de por sí su desconocimiento. Por lo que a mí respecta la única opción válida sería :
Me sorprende que haya muchos animales que coman esa comida. Cuando tenga tiempo lo traduciré al inglés
Well, I agree that you would use the subjunctive coman, but as for the why, I can not exactly tell you. I am not good at grammar, but I do think that coman sounds right.
Adjective clauses should go in the indicative when the speaker knows that such a thing exists. The fact the he is surprised about their existence is irrelevant to the adjective clause. The emotional reaction trigger should only affect the subordinate clause immediately following "Me sorprende que" Adjective clauses should go in the subjunctive when they deny the existence of such things, express skepticism or doubt that such a thing exists or mention something hypothetical.
Ken, as far as I am concerned, I will go with coffee and asto's choice.
the person is saying that he finds it odd that these kind of animals should exist...and what is even odder is that they should eat that kind of stuff.
so he is expressing doubt and skepticism.
In this case, from the context of the sentence it seems clear that they person now knows that there are animals who eat this food, so comen should be used.
I don't agree.
Have a look at this :
In my opinion he is expressing doubt in both parts of the sentence.
How about this?
Hay gente para todo, así que no me sorprende que haya muchos a los que el ruido, el tráfico y otros sinsabores de las grandes urbes no les muevan ni un pelo, y por el contrario sepan exprimir los beneficios de la ciudad y estén encantados con sus vidas, pero si no eres de esos y vives en un sitio como este quizá deberías buscar otras opciones.
Also look at this link,copy and paste, sorry. especially 3rd paragraph.
https://books.google.es/books?id=4AKtBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq;="me sorprende que haya muchos" que&source=bl&ots=2OE4U5wbFz&sig=1iCuV1xVdSLW8CTrrN1q6hUoe_M&hl=es&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGsZ-ulrfVAhWTDRoKHeGpBNoQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q&f;=false
Yo creo que estos son los casos más interesantes porque muestran que el lenguaje está condicionado por principios externos a su normativa. - Shamelesspan
En efecto, no podría estar más de acuerdo
Here is my English translation of Astotxua's post.
In this case the sentence has relative phase. And in sentences with relative phrases the subjunctive is obligatory when it refers to something unknown and the fact of being surprised by something already indicates in itself his ignorance. As far as I'm concerned, the only valid option would be the subjunctive for the final verb.
Well, it seems to come down to a disagreement in terms of the timing of the person's ignorance that many animals eat this food. Not to put words in Astotxua's mouth, but he seems to be saying that the fact he was surprised indicates that his did not know about this phenomena until just now. And the "unknowing" warrants use of the subjunctive even if the "unknowing" no longer exists at the time he made the statement.
I don't know if we'll be able to find a source to sort this out, but it seems like such a fine line....what did he know, and when did he know it.... that I would guess that either the subjunctive or the indicative would be quite common.
I have previously read research papers on subjunctive vs. indicative where the researchers asked a number of Spanish speaking university students which verb they would use in a variety of sentences. In some cases there was a 90/10 split. In other cases, even though there was a clear rule which would indicate the correct verb in grammar books, the students were split nearly 50/50.
Then they interviewed them about their choices. In many cases they didn't know the rules, but their reasons for subjunctive vs. indicative often seemed quite logical and rose from the different ways they were thinking about the situation posed in the sentence. And their choice of mood often seemed appropriate given their state of mind and offered the right "shade" of meaning. Which just goes to show that sometimes the choice of indicative or subjunctive can really just boil down to the "mood" of the speaker, right?
While we're waiting to see if we can find an authoritative source to resolve this little debate I want to pose a little wrinkle.
Let's say the speaker may have seen ONE animal eating "that" food. Someone told her that A LOT of animals eat that food, but she doesn't really believe it.
Personally, in this case, I would suggest that the subjunctive would be be correct to communicate her doubt that a lot of such animals exist.
Now, let's say she has just seen A LOT of animals eating that food. It may be the first time she saw a lot of animals eating that food and she is surprised. However, since she has just seen this she has no doubt that it is true, it is just surprising.
In this case I argue that the final relative clause / adjective clause should go in the indicative while haber is subjunctive - haya - in either of these situations.
If I'm wrong about any of the above, let me know what you think and where I've gone wrong in my thinking.
If all you can say is "it just sounds right/wrong" no problem. However, if you can provide any examples that relate to this from literature or a grammar book that would really be nice.
I really don't know how relevant the following is to the current discussion, but since I mentioned "subjunctive contamination" in my earlier answer I thought I would include it here. This is from A New Reference Grammar of modern Spanish.
Astotxua:
Would you agree in this case with the authors that the verb should be llevó and not llevara/llevase ?
(ii) Students will sometimes encounter examples of the subjunctive that seem to contradict the explanations given in this chapter. One common case is what could be called ‘subjunctive contamination’, i.e. the tendency to use the subjunctive unnecessarily later in a sentence that starts with a subjunctive. An example is no es posible suponer que esta sea la razón por la que el acusado se llevara/llevase el coche ‘it is not possible to conclude that this is the reason why the accused took the car away.’ Llevó would have been correct, but the combined effect of posible que . . . and suponer que . . . , which require the subjunctive, has ‘contaminated’ the phrase la razón por la que . . .
¿Entonces llas dos frases (con subjuntivo e indicativo) son correctas?
Elefantita preguntó lo siguiente sobre el uso del subjuntivo. ¿Debe ser “comen” o “coman”?: “Me sorprende que haya muchos animals que coman / comen esa comida?”
Yo pensaba que “comen” porque “haya” establece otro sujeto (el yo/me a animales) y que toda conjugación posterior debe estar en indicativo. Algunos de este foro acordaron conmigo y otros no, hasta hay gente que dice que las dos formas son aceptables. Alguien pidió ejemplos. Creo que era Dilken.
Yo controlefeé (CTRL-F ?) unas novelas y dí con este ejemplo: “Sus primos, los Gaviria, compañeros de colegio, se sorprendían de que Pablo cargara en el bolsillo llaves de diferentes oficinas del liceo y de que entrara y saliera de ellas con el desparpajo de quien es su dueño.”-“Parábola de Pablo” de Alonso Salazar
