Relative Clause of Characteristic
When a quī-clause takes the subjunctive instead of the indicative, Latin stops reporting a FACT about the antecedent and starts painting what KIND of thing it is.
Sunt quī dīcunt = "there are people who are saying"; sunt quī dīcant = "there are people OF THE SORT WHO would say." Mood does the work.
The construction lives in fixed Cicero frames — sunt quī, nēmō est quī, quis est quī, ūnus / sōlus quī, dīgnus / indīgnus / idōneus / aptus quī.
The trap: result clauses look identical (quī + subj.), but result needs a degree-trigger (tantus, sīc, adeō) in the main clause; characteristic doesn't. Negative inside the clause is nōn, never nē.
"…OF THE SORT WHO…" / "…the kind of X that would…" — describes the TYPE of the antecedent, not a fact.
Negative INSIDE the clause is nōn, not nē. Nē is purpose; ut nōn is result. The mood swap (indicative → subjunctive) is what flips meaning from report to portrait.
See It In Action
— Cic. Tusc. i. 18
The cleanest case in A&G. Sunt quī + putent (subj.) is not "there are people who think" — it is "there are people OF THE SORT WHO would think." Drop the subjunctive and you lose the typology.
— Cic. Lael. 24
Cicero's rhetorical-question form: quis est quī…? implies "nobody at all," so the antecedent is effectively indefinite. The negative is nōn (inside the clause), not nē — characteristic, not purpose.
— Cic. Fam. ix. 20. 4
Nihil est quod + subj. — "there is nothing such that you should…" — is a bone-dry Cicero idiom that English flattens to "there is no reason why." The subjunctive extimēscās is doing the entire "such that" work.
— Cic. Deiot. 34
Sōlus / ūnus trigger characteristic the same way sunt quī does — they single the antecedent out as a TYPE ("the only one of the kind in whose…"). Cicero's rhetorical compliment to Caesar relies on this construction.
Both put a subjunctive in a relative-flavored clause. The decisive question is what stands in the MAIN clause — a general/indefinite antecedent, or a degree-trigger word.
main clause has sunt, nēmō est, quis est, ūnus, sōlus, dīgnus, idōneus; describes a KIND
sunt quī putent
there are some who would think (i.e., "of that sort")
main clause has a degree-trigger — tantus, tālis, sīc, ita, adeō, tot, tam
tantus erat clāmor ut audīrēmus
the shouting was so loud that we heard it
Tip: Ask: does the main clause have a degree-trigger (tantus, tālis, sīc, adeō)? Yes → result. No, and the antecedent is general/indefinite (sunt, nēmō, quis est, ūnus, dīgnus)? → characteristic. A&G itself says: when in doubt, default to characteristic (§ 535).
In sunt quī Caesarem oderint ("there are some who hate Caesar"), why is oderint subjunctive instead of odērunt (perf. ind.)?
Study Tips
- •When you see quī + subjunctive, look at the antecedent FIRST. If it is sunt, nēmō est, quis est, ūnus, sōlus, dīgnus, idōneus, you are inside a characteristic clause — translate "of the sort who…" not "who."
- •Translate sunt quī putent as "there are some who would think" or "there are people of the sort who think." The bare "there are some who think" loses the whole point of the subjunctive.
- •The negative inside a characteristic clause is nōn (e.g. quī nōn cēlet), not nē. Nē belongs to purpose; ut nōn belongs to result. This is the AP-grader-tested swap.
- •Quod sciam ("so far as I know") and quī quidem ("at least such as") are restrictive characteristic clauses — same construction, used as a hedge. Watch for them in Cicero's prose.