Abstract:

The paper takes up the question of the finiteness of the subjunctive, in particular the Greek subjunctive. Taking into account discussions within the gene­rative framework, it adopts the position that the sub­junctive is indeed finite, and examines the main stumbling block in this direction, namely its uni­versally acknowledged lack of semantic tense. It challenges this assumption, analysing a subset of its uses, that in na-complements, in an attempt to show that there is a temporal dimension to the sub­junctive even in its narrowest sense (when the only choice available is between the three aspectually opposed forms): the event it denotes is always placed at a time posterior to that of matrix verbs with a deontic meaning and contemporaneous to that of matrix verbs with a sensory/perceptual meaning.