No. 648 in Italian
stesse
"Stesse" is the third-person singular imperfect subjunctive of "stare," meaning "were" or "was" (subjunctive mood).
In a sentence
Le stesse persone erano già presenti ieri.
The same people were already present yesterday.
In this sentence, 'stesse' is used as an adjective meaning 'same', agreeing with 'persone' in gender and number.
Vorrei che le condizioni stesse migliorassero presto.
I would like the conditions themselves to improve soon.
Here, 'stesse' is used as a pronoun emphasizing 'condizioni', and appears in the subjunctive form aligning with the verb 'migliorassero'.
Se lei stesse dicendo la verità, le crederemmo.
If she were telling the truth, we would believe her.
'Stesse' in this case is part of the present subjunctive conjugation of the verb 'stare', used in a hypothetical conditional clause.
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