Defining the Spanish Future Subjunctive

Abstract

Historically, the Spanish future subjunctive cantare has been defined in theoretical terms that seek to differentiate it in some way from the present subjunctive. In fact, grammarians traditionally have opted for one of the following theoretical models in contrasting the future and present subjunctives: (1) temporal opposition within the same mood; (2) temporal equivalence but modal opposition, by which cantare is more hypothetical and conditional than cante; (3) temporal and modal equality, whereby one needs to describe the syntactic en vironments of cantare and cante in differentiating them; and (4) the future subjunctive is an ante-future that denotes greater definiteness than the present subjunctive. The present study attempts to show the relative merits and flaws of each model before introducing a fifth possibility?based on an analysis of a large corpus of Alfonsine texts?that combines elements from several theories.