Still a bit confused..

Hi Anne,

Looking at the examples in the lesson, it seems to me that an element of emotion is being expressed. Be it some frustration at someone's behavior, this is why I see the subjunctive being required.

The subjunctive in French tends to be triggered by --- wish/emotion/desire/doubt/interrogative/negativity (penser, croire). These types of subjective feelings.

Bonne journée,

Jim

Thanks Jim. My problem wasn’t whether to use the subjunctive or not but that in English the examples are clearly completed past actions. As it seems the present (rather than the past) subjunctive is always used with "le temps que" I was wondering if the phrase "le temps que" itself translates exactly or whether the French see it slightly differently from Anglophones.

In English, the expression takes on a different meaning:

"By the time I finish eating, he'll have drunk a whole bottle." Indignation

"By the time I finished eating, he had drunk a whole bottle." Temporal

Is this sentence appropriate in English or not?

"By the time I had finished eating, he had had drunk a whole bottle."

More typical usage:

"By the time I had finished eating, he had already drunk a whole bottle." Temporal

"By the time I would have finished eating, he would have had finished a whole bottle." Temporal conditional

In French, *avant que*, *jusqu'à ce que*, and *le temps que* receive the subjunctive under the heading "Les temporelles" as a type of "Subordonnée Circonstancielle." However, *Pendant que*, *dès que*, *au moment où*,  *quand*, *lorsque*, *du temps que*, and *aussitôt que* do not take the subjunctive. Neither does *après que*. 

In French, there must be or must have been some difference in saying,

"The lake flooded after the storm swept into town," and "The storm swept into town before the lake flooded." 

The rule is not based on any Latin rule. Rather, I found the rule in Old French, which takes the subjunctive with "tant que, "jusque," and "ainz que." However the English equivalent to "tant que" in Old French is really "until," which is the same as "jusqu'à ce que." "Ainz que" translates to "rather, but, before," which must have devolved into  the "avant que" rule. In Old French, the event is "still unrealised" in these instances of temporal conjunctions.  ("Old French", E. Einhorn p. 117) It seems that the rule just became a standard rule, and the nuance of the event being realized or unrealized became trivial. 

From the chanson, "La Mort Aymeri de Narbonne," there is a good example of the use of ainz que in the subjunctive:

https://archive.org/details/lamortaymeriden02unkngoog/page/n84/mode/2up?q=ainz

https://archive.org/details/lamortaymeriden02unkngoog/page/n130/mode/2up?q=ainz

https://archive.org/details/lamortaymeriden02unkngoog/page/n110/mode/2up?q=%22aille%22

Why is there a difference between "Du temps que" and "le temps que"? That's a good question and it must derive from the original rule. I couldn't find any examples of "le tens que" in the Old French text. The only instances of "tens" were in the literal sense or "peu de temps."

Here is an example from Racine's Bérénice:

https://archive.org/details/berenice0000jrac/page/52/mode/2up?q=%22le+temps+que%22

"Dans le temps que j'espère un bonheur immortel..."

The Bescherelle says:

There are four instances of the subjunctive in the past tense:

1) Aspect completed with respect to the present or future 

2) Anteriority to a verb in the present or future

3) Aspect completed with respect to a past event

4) Anteriority to a verb in the past

However, the examples they give all use the imparfait tense 

for the verb (e.g. Je craignais...) which correponds to the 

Le plus-que parfait passif subjonctif

But the Bescherelle also says that the plusque parfait subjonctif is typically reserved for the Third Personal Singular and that common usage, instead, takes the present subjunctive ("tu aies, pp" instead of "tu eusses pp").