Breakdown of Ci fosse stata una deviazione! Ora siamo imbottigliati.
essere
to be
un
a / an (masculine)
c'è
there is / there are
ora
now
Questions & Answers about Ci fosse stata una deviazione! Ora siamo imbottigliati.
Why does this sentence start directly with Ci fosse stata instead of Se ci fosse stata?
In Italian, you can express an unfulfilled past wish simply by using the past perfect subjunctive (congiuntivo trapassato) as an independent exclamation, completely dropping the word se (if). It gives the sentence a strong emotional tone of regret, translating to 'If only there had been...!'
How does the verb esserci (to be there) work in this past subjunctive form?
Esserci takes essere as its auxiliary verb. To form the past perfect subjunctive, you combine the imperfect subjunctive of essere (which is fosse for the third person) with its past participle (stato). The pronoun ci stays at the front, giving us ci fosse stata.
Why does the past participle stata end in -a here?
Imbottigliati looks like it comes from the word for 'bottle'. Is this how you usually say 'stuck in traffic'?