Discutisses

Discutisses is a form that is sometimes encountered in discussions of French verb conjugation, but it is not a standard modern form for the verb discuter. In contemporary French, the correct second-person singular imperfect subjunctive form of discuter would be discutasses. The imperfect subjunctive (subjonctif imparfait) is a literary tense used in dependent clauses and in formal or historical writing.

For the verb discuter, the conventional imperfect subjunctive paradigm is:

que je discutasse, que tu discutasses, qu’il discutât, que nous discassions, que vous discassiez, qu’ils discassent. This reflects the regular -er verb pattern in the imperfect subjunctive, which uses the -asse endings for the second and third person singular and plural forms.

Because the form discuter uses an -er verb pattern, typical imperfect-subjunctive endings such as discutasse and discutasses are the forms found in standard grammar. The string discutisses does not align with the recognized endings for -er verbs in the imperfect subjunctive in standard French; if encountered in a text, it may indicate a typographical error, a nonstandard dialectal variant, or confusion with the imperfect subjunctive patterns of other verb classes.

Usage of the imperfect subjunctive itself is relatively rare in everyday speech and is largely confined to literary or historical contexts. Modern French tends to replace it with the present subjunctive (que tu discutes) or past constructions in speech and informal writing.

See also: discuter, subjonctif imparfait, French grammar.