Word
Infatti, dubitavo che lui avesse smascherato il traditore.
Meaning
In fact, I doubted that he had unmasked the traitor.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Infatti, dubitavo che lui avesse smascherato il traditore.
lui
he
avere
to have
che
that (conjunction introducing a clause)
dubitare
to doubt
Questions & Answers about Infatti, dubitavo che lui avesse smascherato il traditore.
Why is avesse smascherato in the pluperfect subjunctive (trapassato congiuntivo)?
This is the sequence of tenses in action. The main verb dubitavo (I doubted) is in a past tense and expresses doubt, which triggers the subjunctive in the next clause. Because the action of unmasking happened before the doubting, we must use the pluperfect subjunctive (avesse smascherato) to show that it happened further back in the past.
Why is the main verb dubitavo in the imperfect rather than the passato prossimo?
Dubitavo describes an ongoing state of mind in the past (I was doubting / I held the doubt). The imperfect is the natural choice for describing feelings, thoughts, and states of mind in the past, rather than a single, sudden event.
Could I leave out lui and just say dubitavo che avesse smascherato...?
Does infatti mean exactly the same thing as the English "in fact"?