Transcript cum clauses - WordPress.com

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 The
subjunctive usually appears in
sentences where the speaker intends for the
action to be understood as a wish or simply
an idea. Sometimes, however, the nonfactual
“feel” that the subjunctive mood provides is
used for something else. The subjunctive
mood can also push an action into the
background so that the action illustrated by
the main verb (i.e., the verb in the indicative
mood) can be made more vivid. This is what
cum clauses do.

There are four different ways to read them. Three of those ways
use a verb in the subjunctive mood; the other one is indicative.
 cum temporal clause:
• Cum advēnit, laetī erāmus.
• (When he arrived, we were happy.)
 cum circumstantial clause:
• Cum advenīret, laetī erāmus.
• (When he arrived, we were happy.)
 cum causal clause:
• Cum advenīret, laetī erāmus.
• (Because/Since he arrived, we were happy.)
 cum concessive clause:
• Cum advenīret, laetī tamen erāmus.
• (Even though/although he arrived, we were happy [anyway].)


Cum temporal and cum circumstantial clauses translate
the same way (“when …”), but they use different moods
because they emphasize different things.
Temporal clauses put their verbs in the indicative. They
stress the time the main clause took place.
• (The word “temporal” comes from the Latin tempus, temporis: time)

Circumstantial clauses have verbs in the subjunctive. They
show the circumstances under which the main clause takes
place.
• By using the subjunctive instead of the indicative, they downplay the
importance of their clauses, which in turn emphasizes the main clause.
 Cum
causal clauses do exactly what their
name suggests.
 They show the cause or reason for
whatever the main clause says.
 The subjunctive stresses the possibility of
cause rather than the fact of the matter.
 Cum
concessive clauses aren't very
common, but they are easily recognized by
the inclusion of the word tamen (“but,
anyway, nevertheless”) in the main clause.
 Another way to translate the above example
could be: “He arrived, but we were happy
anyway.”
 The cum clause sets up the circumstances,
but it's the tamen in the main clause that
provides the gist of the entire sentence.
 So, when
you're reading, how do you
know which kind of cum clause it is?
• If it's temporal, the verb will be in the indicative
mood.
• If tamen appears in the main clause, it's
concessive.
• That leaves circumstantial and causal. To tell
them apart you need to rely on context.
The conjunction cum is not the same as the
preposition cum meaning “with.” They are
totally different words. The conjunction was
quom in archaic Latin. That it evolved to
look like the preposition is a coincidence.
If you see the word cum followed by an
ablative, you've got the preposition. If cum
starts a clause that has a verb in the
subjunctive (as they usually do), then it's
the cum we just discussed.