The Imperfect Subjunctive
www.stcharlesprep.org › 01_parents › oneil_jThe imperfect tense of the subjunctive expresses potential action or non-factual actionfrom the viewpoint of the past tense. In English, the helping verbs might and would are used to express the imperfect subjunctive. In Latin, the imperfect subjunctive is almost always used in a subordinate clause; there is no hortatory subjunctive which uses the imperfect tense.