This paper deals with the connections between the syntactic subordination on the one hand, and what we propose to call, according to Gustave Guillaume's distinction between tongue and discourse, the " tongue subordination ", which is inherently linked to the dialogical intrinsic properties of French and Spanish conditional tenses on the other hand. We first attempt to highlight how close these connections are as it regards the prototypical uses of the conditional tense in both Spanish and French; we subsequently provide an analysis of the nature of the above-mentioned con-nections when the conditional is used in a main clause, focusing on two French constructions unknown in Spanish