Lombard/Hypothetical construction

The hypothetical construction: comparison between English and Lombard

In Lombard, as in English there is the hypothetical period, the correspondence between the verb tenses used in Lombard and in English is shown in the table below.

Correspondence between the verbs used in the hypothetical construction in English and in Lombard

Type		in English	in Lombard
0	verb used in the if-clause	Present Simple	Present Indicative
	verb used in the main clause	Present Simple	Present Indicative
1	verb used in the if-clause	Present Simple	Present Indicative or Simple Future Indicative
	verb used in the main clause	Future Simple	Simple Future Indicative
2	verb used in the if-clause	Past Simple	Imperfect Subjunctive
	verb used in the main clause	Present Conditional	Present Conditional
3	verb used in the if-clause	Past Perfect	Past Perfect Subjunctive or Imperfect Indicative (sometimes in colloquial form)
	verb used in the main clause	Past Conditional	Past Conditional or Imperfect Indicative (sometimes in colloquial form)

Note

Other forms for the second type hypothetical construction

Instead of Imperfect Subjunctive in de if-clause you can also use constructions like:

(1) Imperfect Subjunctive of the verb "vesser" + de + verb in the infinitive form

or

(2) Imperfect Subjunctive of the verb "havégh" + de + verb in the infinitive form

Note

Examples (in Milanese dialect):

(1) se fussi de trovàll, ghe parlaria mi

(If I were to find him I would talk to him)

(2)se gh'havessi de trovàll, ghe parlaria mi

(If I were to find him I would talk to him)

Eventually the hypothetical period can be realized without if by using instead al (or its dialectal variants) + infinitive. This construction is confined to cases where the hypothesis concerns something that could happen and not something that could be in a certain way and when the subject (implied) of the hypothetical clause coincides with that of the main one.

Example (in Milanese dialect):

(3) al trovàll, ghe parlaria. (If I happened to find him, I would talk to him / When I find him, I 'll talk to him.)

in which "al + verb in the infinitive form" is equivalent to saying "the moment the subject of the main sentence happened to + verb in the infinitive form'".