Breakdown of Lo avrei aiutato, ma era sconvolto, come se l'angoscia lo avesse distrutto.
essere
to be
ma
but
avere
to have
aiutare
to help
se
if
lo
him/it (direct object)
la
her/it (direct object)
come
as (in comparisons)
distruggere
to destroy
sconvolto
distraught / shocked
l'angoscia
the anguish / the anxiety (f)
Questions & Answers about Lo avrei aiutato, ma era sconvolto, come se l'angoscia lo avesse distrutto.
Why do we use the pluperfect subjunctive (avesse distrutto) after come se?
The phrase come se always triggers the subjunctive. Because the hypothetical event of the anguish destroying him occurred before the past moment when he was distraught, we use the pluperfect subjunctive.
Could we use the imperfect subjunctive (distruggesse) instead?
Using distruggesse would imply the destruction was happening at the exact same time he was distraught. The pluperfect subjunctive (avesse distrutto) correctly shows that the hypothetical destruction had already happened, leading to his distraught state.
Since being distraught is an emotion, why is era sconvolto in the indicative rather than the subjunctive?
While verbs expressing emotion trigger the subjunctive in a dependent clause (for example, mi dispiace che sia sconvolto), here era sconvolto is an independent statement of fact. It states that he definitively was distraught, so it takes the standard indicative mood.
In the phrase Lo avrei aiutato, does the past participle aiutato agree with the pronoun Lo?
Yes. When you use the third-person direct object pronouns lo, la, li, or le before a compound tense, the past participle must agree with the pronoun. Because lo refers to a masculine person, aiutato ends in -o. If the speaker had wanted to help a woman, it would be L'avrei aiutata.
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