The Spanish Verb-Form with the Greatest Variety of Functions

T HE most useful verb-form in Spanish is that in -ra, if we are to judge by the number of functions performed. While the simple present indicative form serves for at least eight functions, and the imperfect indicative form for six or more, the -ra verb-form' fulfills some thirty, if we divide them into separate categories such as are commonly referred to in technical grammar discussions. The history2 of the gradual expansion of the functions of the -ra verbform during more than eight centuries, from that of the indicative pluperfect into three other indicative past usages, and then over into the subjunctive pluperfect functions, in the apodosis and protasis and optative and even subordinate clauses, and later into imperfect functions of the same clauses (plus a few additional uses), shows that this form was in time accepted not only for four past tenses of the indicative, but for practically all the many functions of the -se form (pluperfect and imperfect) and for all but two of the functions of the -ria form (these two being the future indicative from the past and the future of probability from the past),. In addition, it has served with past and present tense-value in softened statements (quisiera, pudiera, debiera), as well as after como with indicative values (substituting for the classic Spanish usage of como plus -se in causal clauses, in imitation of a standard Latin usage), and

Linguistics · Variety (cybernetics) · Verb · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Linguistic Studies and Language Acquisition · Philosophy · Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies

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