Take your life in your hands and suggest to Norman, the owner of the Bates Motel in Hitchcock’s Psycho how he should deal with his “mother” …
MARION
You know, if
anyone ever talked to me, the way I heard... the way she spoke to you, …
NORMAN
When you love someone, you don't do that to them,
even if you hate them. Oh, I don't hate her. I hate... what she's become. I hate... the
illness.
MARION (Slowly,
carefully)
Wouldn't it be better if you put her in...
someplace...
Ah well, if
Marion hadn’t taken a wrong turning, she would not have met
Norman – but she did take a wrong turning, and she did meet him
and, well, you’ll need to watch the movie…
Among all Latin
clause types, conditional clauses show the closest parallel with English: in
both languages, verb forms change to express the speaker’s perspective.
Image #1:
conditional clauses can be broadly classified according to type.
Here, we will look
at the types under the overall heading of real conditions: the speaker
treats the situation in the conditional clause as true, rather than as
imaginary or unreal, and are used with the indicative mood in
Latin:
(a) General
truths:
If you heat ice, it melts.
If he (ever) saw a poor man in the
street, he used to give him some money.
(b) Specific
situations considered likely in context, whether present or past:
If he thinks that, he is mistaken.
If he did that, he made a mistake.
(c) Specific
situations in the future which, again, the speaker treats as likely to happen:
If gives me the money, I will buy the cake.
Grammar books may
give slightly different terms for these conditional types, but the key point is
that none of the conditions express any doubt, but rather as true
or likely to be true.
[1] present /
past
[A] Sī tū exercitusque valētis [present
indicative], ¦ [B] bene est [present indicative] (Cicero)
- If you and the army are well, ¦ it is well.
[A] Sī iam melius valēs [present indicative], ¦
[B] vehementer gaudeō [present indicative] (Cicero)
- If you are in better health now, ¦ I am very glad.
[A] Sī quī māgnīs in eō genere exstitērunt
[perfect indicative], ¦ [B] nōn satis Graecōrum glōriae respondērunt [perfect
indicative] (Cicero)
- If any have shown themselves of great genius in that department, ¦ they have not competed sufficiently with the glory of the Greeks.
[A] Sī peccāvī [perfect indicative], ¦ [B]
īnsciēns fēcī [perfect indicative] (Terence)
- If I did / have done wrong, ¦ I did / have done so unwittingly.
The sentences above have two clauses:
[A] The conditional clause introduced by sī (if); this is
called the protasis and states the condition on which [B] depends.
[B] The main clause is called the apodosis.
It is useful to remember those two terms, since they are
commonly used in grammar books.
[A: PROTASIS] Sī illum relinquō,¦
[B: APODOSIS] eius vītae timeō (Terence)
- If I abandon
him, ¦ I fear for his life.
[A: PROTASIS] Sī quī exīre volunt,¦ [B: APODOSIS] cōnīvēre possum (Cicero)
- If any wish to depart, ¦ I can keep my eyes shut.
[A: PROTASIS] Sī est in exsiliō [PROTASIS], … ¦ B: APODOSIS] quid amplius postulātis?
(Cicero)
- If he is in exile, ¦ what more do you ask?
[2] future more vivid
[i] In grammar the term future more vivid conditional
refers to an outcome that the speaker thinks / perceives is more
likely to happen
[ii] Unlike English, a future condition in the protasis is
expressed by sī + the future or future perfect tense:
[A] Quod sī legere aut audīre volētis [future
indicative] . . . [B] reperiētis [future indicative] … (Cicero)
- If you (will) want to read or hear it … you will find …
[A] Egō ad tē, ¦ [B] sī quid audierō [future
perfect indicative] citius, ¦ scrībam [future indicative].
(Cicero)
- I shall write to you ¦ if I hear [literally: shall have heard) anything sooner.
[A] Haec sī attulerīs [future perfect
indicative], [B] cēnābis [future indicative] bene (Catullus)
- If you bring [literally: will have brought] these things, ¦ you will dine well.
[3] general / iterative:
[i] When (if) you love someone, you don't do
that to them.
Whenever he saw / If he ever saw a poor
man …; the term iterative may be applied to this type of condition to
define an action that happens / happened repeatedly:
English can convey these conditions, with ‘when(ever)’
rather than ‘if’; Latin uses sī:
Sī pēs condoluit, sī dēns, ferre
nōn possumus (Cicero)
- If (ever) a foot or a tooth has begun to ache, ¦ we can't bear it.
[ii] The idea may be emphasised by the addition of quandō,
but not as a replacement for sī:
Sī quandō in puerīs ante alter dēns nāscitur ...
(Celsus)
- If ever in children a second tooth appears …
[iii] When referring to the past, the imperfect or
pluperfect tense can be used in the conditional clause:
Sī legēbant, inveniēbant disciplīnam.
- If (whenever) they read, they acquired / used to acquire knowledge.
Sī pauperem in viā vidēbat / vīderat,
semper eum adiuvāre cōnābātur.
- If he saw a poor man in the street, he would always try to help him.
Sī tribūnī, sī legiō industriam
innocentiamque adprobāverant, retinēbat ōrdinem (Tacitus)
- If the tribunes or legion approved of his industry and innocence, he would retain his rank.
[4] ‘if’ is also used
in English to ask an indirect question e.g. I want to know if he’s
arrived = I want to know whether he’s arrived (or not).
Latin does not use sī to convey that idea, but
num and utrum … an
Level 3+; Subjunctive [68] dependent uses [6] indirect
questions (5); num
Level 3+; Subjunctive [69] dependent uses [6] indirect
questions (6); utrum … an …
[5] In all
conditional constructions [A] and [B] may, as in English, be reversed:
[B] Experiar
et dīcam [future indicative], ¦ [A] sī poterō [future
indicative], plānius (Cicero)
- I shall try and explain, ¦ if I can [literally: if I shall be able; future indicative] more clearly (Cicero)
[5] tenses can be mixed:
Convincam [future indicative], ¦ sī negās
[present indicative] (Cicero)
- I shall prove it, ¦ if you deny it.
Sī pēs condoluit [perfect indicative], sī
dēns, ¦ ferre nōn possumus [present indicative] (Cicero)
- If (ever) a foot or a tooth has begun to ache, ¦ we can't bear it.
Cēnābis [future indicative] bene, mī fabulle, apud mē
/ paucīs, ¦ sī tibi dī favent [present indicative], ¦ diēbus
(Catullus)
- You will dine well, my Fabullus, at my house, ¦ in a few days’ time if the gods favour you.
Sī ille exitum nōn reperiēbat
[imperfect indicative], ¦ quis nunc reperiet [future indicative]?
(Cicero)
- If he was not able to find any way out, ¦ who will find one now?
Misera plūs perdidī [perfect indicative], sī
nēmō crēdit [present indicative] (Quintilian)
- Wretched I have lost more ¦ if noone believes me.
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