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Some grammarians, on similar lines, will ague for our against conditional's status based on its ability to be used in the main clause, but others will say that in such cases, there's really just an implicit clause in the subjunctive, e.g., "yo iría (si fuese así)". Some grammarians will argue that in reality, such constructions have an implicit indicative clause like "(quiero que) no me hables", but I'm less convinced, as in subordinate clauses proclisis is mandatory, but "hábleme" is perfectly grammatical with enclisis. Subjunctive can't be used generally without a main clause, most grammarians will point out, but the restriction isn't absolute: exhortative subjunctive is still alive and well in the form of usted and nosotros commands, and all negative commands, and also in formal Spanish. Still others look to the syntactical nature. If it's 100% interchangeable with the indicative, it must also be indicative, the thought would go. While the event had not yet occurred at the moment that dijo occurs, it is presumed that it will happen and in fact is fully interchangeable with the definitively indicative phrase iba a ir. On the other hand, you also have statements like this: Thus, one could make a solid argument for a non-indicative mood. It is one of the many great debates in the Spanish language, and is really a result of two quite different uses of the conjugation:Ĭlearly indicates something that is not occurring, will not occur, and has not occurred.
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