CHAPTER 24

The Present and Imperfect Subjunctive in Subordinate Clauses II

Indirect commands are also known as jussive noun clauses. That name is even less instructive. “Jussive” is derived from iubere, “to command”, even though that verb rarely employs this construction in classical Latin; see below. They are called noun clauses because the whole of the subordinate clause may be regarded as the object of the verb which introduces them; compare, for example, “I demand that you give me a book” and “I demand a book”. This is potentially confusing, given that the main verb very frequently already has an expressed object; e.g. “I order you to give (= that you should give) me a book”. In any case, several other types of subordinate clause might equally well have been called noun clauses.