The Role of Time Reference in Explaining the Present Subjunctive Functions in Contemporary Farsi

In this research, in order to find a consistent explanation for all the uses of present subjunctive in Farsi, by relying on a corpus of 3000 sentences, we managed to extract and classify all the functions of present subjunctive. We concluded that present subjunctive is used both in the simple and (relative, adverbial and complementary clauses in) compound sentences. In the simple sentences as well as the relative clauses subjunctive making elements are usually considered to be semantic. The subjunctive making elements in complementary and adverbial clauses are the main clause verb and linking word respectively. The paper also employs Comrie (1985) and Reichenbach’s (1947) tripartite distinction between speech time, event time, and reference time to show that present subjunctive has relative time. And also by choosing Darzi and Kwak (2015) approach in explaining the present subjunctive functions in complimentary clauses, we discussed its function in simple, relative and adverbial clauses in compound sentences. We concluded that reference time in simple and relative clauses is simultaneous with the speech time; such that these kinds of verbs necessarily refer to present or future. In the complementary clauses the main clause verb is considered to be the reference time of the present subjunctive verb. Reference time in the adverbial clauses, depending on the linking word, may be simultaneous with the speech time or main verb time. Whether the reference time is simultaneous with the speech time or main verb time, the subjunctive verb has got a “relative non-past time”. In the other words, compared to the reference time it refers to the future or present.