Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Conditional sentences consist basically of an if-clause (or “protasis”) and a main clause (or “apodosis”), although many variations are possible. It is more common for the if-clause to come first, as in the examples below, but in principle the two clauses may occur in either order. Conditional sentences can be divided into hypothetical conditionals and factual conditionals.
Hypothetical conditionals
These sentences express a hypothesis, consisting of a condition and a consequence resulting from the fulfillment of that condition: “if x, then y.” The choice of mood and tense of the verbs in the two clauses reflects the degree of probability the speaker attaches to the likelihood that the hypothesis may come true. The indicative emphasizes that the hypothesis is in fact possible, while the subjunctive and conditional highlights the speculative or unreal nature of the hypothesis.
Verb mood and tense
Indicative in both clauses
The present, future, and passato prossimo may be used to express a hypothesis about present, future or past, e.g.:
Se compri il giornale, possiamo vedere cosa c'è alla televisione.
If you buy the newspaper, we can see what's on TV.
R1* vulgar or indecent
R1 informal, colloquial
R2 neutral, unmarked
R3 formal, written Italian words and expressions are R2 unless otherwise indicated. See also p. 5.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.