Should the subjunctive be used after the verb "asegurar que"?
The sentence I am trying to write is "La policía no se aseguraron que el niño tuviera un arma autentico o que él fuera una amenaza."
Is the use of the subjunctive tense correct here?
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Sign up to join this communityYes, it is correct, the subjunctive is the correct verbal time that you need to use there, as both actions were ocurring in the past but at the same time or shortly after. Here, some uses of the "preterito imperfecto de subjuntivo" form are explained: http://espanol.lingolia.com/es/gramatica/tiempos-subjuntivo/preterito-imperfecto (I think this one is the first one)
It is in spanish, but I think you should be able to understand it, given that you're studying the more complex conjugations.
Also, let me rewrite the sentence for you, and correct a couple other mistakes which you might want to edit.
La policía no se aseguró de que el niño tuviera un arma auténtica o de que (él) fuera una amenaza
La policía
is singular even though it can be used as a collective name. Also, arma
is feminine, so even if you would use the masculine undetermined article un
(because the first syllabe is tonic and starts with a- or ha-) you must match the gender for the adjective and write auténtica
.
La arma
is fully incorrect. The cacophony needs to be avoided. In the case of una arma
, there is no cacophony, but a lighter phenomenon that I would not know how to name :) However, the RAE says that una arma
is correct but infrequent.
"Policía" is also used as a collective noun, so you should use a singular form for the subjunctive. Being a past tense, you should write it as "aseguró". The complete phrase would be:
La policía no se aseguró "de que" el niño no tuviera "un" arma "aunténtica" o "de que" él fuera una amenaza.
"Arma" is a female noun for weapon and that's the reason why "auténtica" is the correct form of the adjective in this case.