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.