| Latin grammar |
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From a semantic perspective, a tense is a temporal circumstance in which an event takes place relative to a given point in time. [lower-roman 1] [lower-roman 2] [lower-roman 3] It is absolute (primary) if it relates the represented event to the time of the speech event [lower-roman 4] [lower-roman 5] [lower-roman 6] [lower-roman 7] and it is relative if it relates the represented event to the time of another event in the context of discourse. [lower-roman 8] [lower-roman 9] [lower-roman 10] [lower-roman 11] In turn, a relative tense may be “relative to absolute” (secondary) [lower-roman 12] if it relates the represented event to the primary tense. [lower-roman 13] [lower-roman 14] Read more about possible tenses in the article on grammatical tense.
In indicative clauses, Latin has three primary tenses [lower-roman 15] and three series of secondary tenses. The primary tenses are the futureagam ('I will do'), the presentagō ('I am doing'), and the pastēgī ('I did'). The series of secondary tenses are: 1) the secondary future series āctūrus erō ('I will be about to do'), āctūrus sum ('I am about to do'), and āctūrus eram ('I was about to do'); 2) the secondary present series agam ('I will be doing'), agō ('I am doing'), and agēbam ('I was doing'); and 3) the secondary past series ēgerō ('I will have done'), ēgī ('I have done'), and ēgeram ('I had done').
This article covers only free indicative clauses for what took place, is taking place, or will take place. For bound indicative clauses, visit Latin tenses in relative clauses and Latin tenses in dependent clauses. For indications of frequency, possibility, volition and obligation, visit the article on Latin tenses with modality. For commands, see Latin tenses in commands.
In Latin, a process may have one of three primary tenses: future, present and past. Each primary tense is described in a separate section below.
The primary future is the future relative to the time of speech. For most verbs, the future is usually construed by a 'future indicative' verb as in faciam ('I will do'). In Early Latin, there was the 'sigmatic future indicative' faxō (also 'I will do'). [lower-roman 16]
For verbs of recalling such as meminī ('I remember'), ōdī ('I hate'), nōvī ('I know') and some verbs of states such as mortuus est ('is dead') and dīvīsum est ('is divided'), inflections and periphrases that usually construe a past-in-future as in agerō ('I will have done') have their meanings reduced to a primary future: there is meminerō ('I will remember') evolved from meminerō ('I will have memorized') and there is mortuus erit for either the future state ('he will be dead') or the past-in-future event mortuus erit ('he will have died').
| Paradigm | Latin Example | English translation | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 'future indicative ' | īnsequentī librō explicābō (Vitruvius) [1] | 'I will explain this in the next book' | will do, do in English |
| 'sigmatic future indicative' | faxō haud inultus prandium comēderīs (Plautus) [2] | 'I will make sure you haven't eaten that lunch unpunished' | |
| 'future perfect indicative' | meminerō, dē istōc quiētus estō (Plautus) [3] | 'I shall remember, don't worry about that' |
The primary present is the present relative to the time of speech. Most often the present tense is construed by a 'present indicative' verb. For verbs of recalling such as meminī ('I remember'), ōdī ('I hate'), nōvī ('I know') and verbs of resulting states such as mortuus est ('is dead') and dīvīsum est ('is divided'), inflections and periphrases that usually construe a past-in-present as in ēgī ('I have done') have their meanings reduced to a primary present: there is meminī ('I remember') evolved from meminī ('I have memorized') and there is mortuus est for either a present state ('he is dead') or a past-in-present event ('he has died'). [lower-roman 17]
Similarly, the 'present indicative' auxiliary in "habeō" perfect periphrasis as in habeō subōrnātum may represent either a present ownership of placed objects ('I own that clock placed over there') or the placement of owned objects with focus on the placement ('my clock is placed over there'). [lower-roman 18] In contrast, the 'present indicative' in "teneō" perfect periphrasis ('hold' or 'keep') represents the process of actively keeping an obeject in a given state while one speaks.
| Paradigm | Latin Example | English translation | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 'present indicative' | senātus haec intellegit; cōnsul videt; hic tamen vīvit (Cicero) [4] | 'the Senate understands this; the Consul sees it; yet this man is alive' | do, are doing, have done, have been doing in English |
| 'perfect indicative' | meminī mē adesse (Cicero) [5] | 'I remember being present' | |
| 'present indicative auxiliary in "sum" perfect periphrasis' | passer mortuus est meae puellae (Catullus) [6] | 'my girlfriend's pet sparrow is dead | |
| 'present indicative auxiliary in "habeō" perfect periphrasis' | Horolōgium in triclīniō et bucinātōrem habet subōrnātum, ut subinde sciat quantum dē vītā perdiderit! (Petronius) [7] | 'He has a clock and a horn set up in the triclinium to remember from time to time how much of his life he spent thus far' | have... placed in English |
| 'present indicative auxiliary in "teneō" perfect periphrasis' | populī Rōmānī exercitus Cn. Pompeium circumsedet, fossā et vallō saeptum tenet, fugā prohibet (Cicero) [8] | 'an army of the Roman people is besieging Gnaeus Pompey, and is keeping him fenced in with a ditch and wall, and preventing him from fleeing' | is keeping... in English |
The primary past is the past relative to the time of speech. In biographies, past events are usually represented by 'perfect indicative' verbs. [lower-roman 19] In contrast, in narrative prose and poetry, past events are most often represented by 'present indicative' verbs as if these events were taking place at the time of narration. [lower-roman 20] In particular, past speech events are often represented by 'present indicative' verbs when reporting what other people said: e.g. fidem dant ('they gave a pledge') or ōrant ('they begged'). More than half the 'present indicative' verbs for past events in Caesar's books are of this kind. [lower-roman 21]
However, in recounts of events long past at the time of narration, the 'imperfect indicative' is used instead of 'perfect indicative' or 'present indicative' as if these events were being vividly remembered by a story-internal observer in distress. [lower-roman 22] [lower-roman 23] [lower-roman 24] As for word order, in Caesar's books, when a verb for a past event is placed initially in the sentence, as in the example below (videt imminēre hostēs), it is very frequently 'present indicative'. [lower-roman 25]
For verbs of recalling such as meminī ('I remember'), ōdī ('I hate'), nōvī ('I know') and verbs of resulting states such as mortuus est ('is dead') and dīvīsum est ('is divided'), inflections and periphrases that usually construe a past-in-past as in ēgeram ('I had done') have their meanings reduced to a primary past: there is meminī ('I remembered') evolved from meminī ('I had memorized') and there is mortuus erat for the past state ('he was dead') and the past-in-past event ('he had died').
In some contexts, the '"habeō" perfect periphrasis with present indicative auxiliary' is often interchangeable with 'perfect indicative' verbs. In later Latin the compound past with habeō became progressively more common, though still less common than the simple past with a 'perfect indicative' verb. [lower-roman 26]
| Paradigm | Latin Example | English translation | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 'perfect indicative' | vēnī, vīdī, vīcī (Suetonius) [9] | 'I came, I saw, I conquered' | did in English |
| 'present indicative' | videt imminēre hostēs ... capit arma ā proximīs ... (Caesar) [10] | 'he saw the enemy coming ... he seized weapons from those nearby ...' | |
| 'imperfect indicative' | caedēbātur virgīs in mediō forō Messanae civis rōmānus... (Cicero) [11] | 'A Roman citizen was beaten by rods in the center of Messana's main square...' | |
| 'pluperfect indicative' | meminerant ad Alesiam magnam sē inopiam perpessōs (Caesar) [12] | 'they remembered how they had put up with a great shortage at Alesia' | |
| 'present indicative auxiliary in "sum" perfect periphrasis' | ubī occīsus est Sex. Rōscius? – Rōmae (Cicero) [13] | 'where was Sextus Roscius murdered? – in Rome' |
In Latin, represented events and states may be related to the time of another event in discourse, which in turn has a primary tense. Such events are said to have a secondary tense, of which there are three in Latin: namely, secondary future, secondary present and secondary past, each of which is described in a separate section below.
The secondary future is the future relative to a primary tense, which can be future, present, or past. Most often, the secondary future is realized by the periphrasis facturus + erō, sum, eram, fuī.
If applied to actions, the compound 'future in present' (e.g. factūrus sum, ‘am [going] to do’) represents a person's action that is future at an ongoing process other than the speech event such as tē absente ("while you are absent"). Similarly, the compound 'future in future' (e.g. factūrus erō, 'I will do') represents a person's action that will happen after a given future event. In contrast, the future periphrasis with an ‘imperfect indicative’ auxiliary (e.g. factūrus eram, ‘was about to do’) represents a person’s past plan of action. Although less common than the future periphrases with eram, future periphrases with a ‘perfect indicative’ auxiliary such as fuī are also found. [lower-roman 27]
| Meaning | Paradigm | Latin Example | English translation | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| future in future | 'future indicative auxiliary in future periphrasis' | tu tamen sī quid cum Sīliō, vel illō ipsō diē quō ad Siccam ventūrus erō, certiōrem mē velim faciās (Cicero) [14] | 'but if you come to any arrangement with Silius, even if it is on the very day I am on my way to Sicca's house, please let me know' | is planning / about to do in English |
| future in present | 'present indicative auxiliary in future periphrasis' | Paulla Valeria ... nūptūra est D. Brūtō [tē absente]. (Cicero) [15] | [while you are away] 'Paulla Valeria... is planning to marry Decimus Brutus' | |
| future in past | 'imperfect indicative auxiliary in future periphrasis' | posterō diē, cum ab eō digressus essem..., ille... in Italiam versus nāvigātūrus erat (Servius to Cicero) [16] | 'on the next day, when I left him..., he was going to sail... to Italy' | was going / about to do in English |
| 'perfect indicative auxiliary in future periphrasis' | quō diē repulsus est, lūsit, quā nocte peritūrus fuit, lēgit (Seneca) [17] | 'on the day Cato was defeated in the election, he played; on the night he was about to die, he read' | ||
The secondary present is the present relative to a primary tense, which can be future, present or past. From these, 'present in present' is the rarest one. Theare are two secondary presents in Latin: the simple secondary present is realised by verbs with īnfectum aspect such as faciam, [lower-roman 28] faciō, faciēbam and the compound secondary present is realised by the periphrasis facere + coeperō, coepī, coeperam. [lower-roman 29] [lower-roman 30] [lower-roman 31] The verb group is often accompanied by spatial and temporal adjuncts such as ibī 'there', tum 'then', and eō tempore 'at that moment'.
| Meaning | Paradigm | Latin Example | English translation | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| present in future | 'future indicative' | ibī cōtīdiē tuās litterās exspectābō (Cicero) [18] | 'There, I shall be waiting for your letters every day' | will/shall be doing in English |
| 'future perfect indicative auxiliary in "coepī" present periphrasis' | Nam cum coeperīs deae servīre, tunc magis sentiēs frūctum tuae lībertātis. (Apuleius) [19] | 'For it is when you are serving the goddess that you will feel the fruit of your freedom.' | am doing in English | |
| present in present | 'present indicative' | am doing in English | ||
| rēs hodiē minor est here quam fuit (Juvenal) [20] | 'resources are scarcer today than they used to be yesterday' | |||
| 'perfect indicative auxiliary in "coepī" present periphrasis' | Sub Tiberiō et Gaiō et Claudiō ūnīus familiae quasi hērēditās fuimus: locō lībertātis erit quod ēligī coepimus. (Tacitus) [21] | 'Under Tiberius, Gaius and Claudius we were like the property of a single family: [in the new regime] it should work as a substitute for freedom that we are now being selected.' | ||
| present in past | 'imperfect indicative' | ex equō tum forte Mettius pugnābat (Livy) [22] | 'at that time (the time of his death) Mettius was fighting on horseback' | was doing in English |
| 'pluperfect indicative auxiliary in "coepī" present periphrasis' | Sed, quod coeperam dīcere, postquam lupus factus est, ululāre coepit et in silvās fūgit. (Petronius) [23] | 'But, as I was saying, once he turned into a wolf, he began to howl and ran away into the woods.' |
The secondary past is the past relative to a primary tense, which can be future, present or past. There are three secondary pasts in Latin: 1. the simple secondary past is realised by verbs with perfectum aspect such as fēcerō, fēcī, fēceram; 2. the compound secondary past with "sum" is realised by the periphrasis factus + ero, sum, eram or fuī; and 3. the compound secondary past with "habeō" is realised by the periphrasis factum + habēbō, habeō, habēbam or habuī. In the secondary past, imperfect indicative auxiliaries such as eram and habēbam are more frequent than their perfect indicative counterparts such as fuī and habuī. [lower-roman 32]
| Meaning | Paradigm | Latin Example | English translation | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| past in future | 'future perfect indicative' | 'dēsilite', inquit, 'mīlitēs, nisī vultis aquilam hostibus prōdere; egō certē meum reī pūblicae atque imperātōrī officium praestiterō (Caesar) [24] | 'Jump down, soldiers,' he said, 'unless you want to betray the eagle to the enemy. I for my part will certainly have done my own duty for the republic and the commander!' | will have done or have done in English |
| 'future indicative of "sum" perfect periphrasis' | ego sī cum Antoniō locūtus erō, scrībam ad tē quid āctum sit. (Cicero) [25] | 'Once I have talked to Antony, I will let you know what happened.' | ||
| 'future indicative of "habeō" perfect periphrasis' | sed iam dē epistulīs satis dictum habēbō, sī hoc ūnum addiderō (Apuleius) [26] | 'but I will have said enough about the letters if I add this one thing' | ||
| past in present | 'perfect indicative' | et habet unde: ... dēcessit illīus pater (Petronius) [27] | 'and he has enough money: ... his father has died' | have done in English |
| 'present indicative of "sum" perfect periphrasis' | et habet unde: relictum est illī sestertium trecentiēs (Petronius) [28] | 'and he has enough money: he has inherited thirty million' | ||
| 'present indicative of "habeō" perfect periphrasis' | unde ulteriōrem mēnsūram inhabitābilis plagae multō esse majōrem arbitror, nam et ā Germānia inmēnsās insulās nōn prīdem conpertās cognitum habeō. (Gaius Plinius Secundus) [29] | 'so I think the remaining extension of the inhabitable beaches is much larger, for I have learned that large islands had been discovered by the Germans not long ago.' | ||
| past in past | 'pluperfect indicative' | eādem quā vēnerat viā Elatīam rediit (Livy) [30] | 'he returned to Elatia by the same way he had come' | had done in English |
| 'imperfect indicative of "sum" perfect periphrasis' | prīdiē quam ego Athēnās vēnī Mytilēnās profectus erat (Cicero) [31] | 'on the day before I arrived in Athens he had departed for Mytilene' | ||
| 'perfect indicative of "sum" perfect periphrasis' | prior nātus fuit Sophoclēs quam Eurīpidēs (nātus est) (Gellius) [32] | 'Sophocles had been born earlier than Euripides (was born)' | ||
| 'imperfect indicative of "habeō" perfect periphrasis' | Caesar equitātum omnem quem ex omnī prōvinciā coāctum habēbat praemittit (Caesar) [33] | 'Caesar sent ahead all the cavalry which he had gathered together from the whole province' | ||
| 'perfect indicative of "habeō" perfect periphrasis' | in montibus castra habuit posita Pompeius in cōnspectū utrōrumque oppidōrum (Caesar) [34] | 'Pompeius had placed a camp in the mountains within sight of both towns' |
If the secondary past applies to an event that had happened prior to a past point in time, the tertiary past applies to a third event that had happened earlier than that. The tertiary past is realised by a 'pluperfect indicative' auxiliary in either the "sum" perfect periphrasis or the "habeō" perfect periphrasis. Both the compound tertiary past with fueram and the compound tertiary past with habueram are uncommon tenses. [lower-roman 33]
| Meaning | Paradigm | Latin Example | English translation | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| past in past in past | 'pluperfect indicative auxiliary in the "sum" perfect periphrasis' | Erat summa inopia pabulī, adeo ut foliīs ex arboribus strictīs et tenerīs harundinum radicibus contūsīs equōs alērent, frūmenta enim, quae fuerant intrā mūnītiōnēs sata, consūmpserant (Caesar) [35] | 'There was a great scarcity of fodder, so much so that they cut leaves from the trees, pulled off soft roots of thorn trees and fed the horses with them, for by this time the corn which had earlier been sown inside the defence walls had been used up | had done earlier in English |
| 'pluperfect indicative auxiliary in "habeō" perfect periphrasis' | itaque nāvīs omnīs quās parātās habuerant ad nāvigandum prōpugnātōribus īnstrūxērunt (Caesar) [36] | 'and so they drew up and manned with fighters all the ships which they had earlier got ready for sailing' |
In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns.
The subjunctive is a grammatical mood, a feature of an utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude toward it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, obligation, or action that has not yet occurred; the precise situations in which they are used vary from language to language. The subjunctive is one of the irrealis moods, which refer to what is not necessarily real. It is often contrasted with the indicative, a realis mood which principally indicates that something is a statement of fact.
In grammar, a future tense is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French aimera, meaning "will love", derived from the verb aimer. The "future" expressed by the future tense usually means the future relative to the moment of speaking, although in contexts where relative tense is used it may mean the future relative to some other point in time under consideration.
The present tense is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present tense, it is useful to imagine time as a line on which the past tense, the present and the future tense are positioned. The term present tense is usually used in descriptions of specific languages to refer to a particular grammatical form or set of forms; these may have a variety of uses, not all of which will necessarily refer to present time. For example, in the English sentence "My train leaves tomorrow morning", the verb form leaves is said to be in the present tense, even though in this particular context it refers to an event in future time. Similarly, in the historical present, the present tense is used to narrate events that occurred in the past.
In French grammar, verbs are a part of speech. Each verb lexeme has a collection of finite and non-finite forms in its conjugation scheme.
The sequence of tenses is a set of grammatical rules of a particular language, governing the agreement between the tenses of verbs in related clauses or sentences.
Indirect speech, also known as reported speech, indirect discourse (US), or ōrātiō oblīqua, is the practice, common in all Latin historical writers, of reporting spoken or written words indirectly, using different grammatical forms. Passages of indirect speech can extend from a single phrase to an entire paragraph, and this style was generally preferred by Roman historians to the direct speech commonly found in Greek authors.
Romance verbs are the most inflected part of speech in the language family. In the transition from Latin to the Romance languages, verbs went through many phonological, syntactic, and semantic changes. Most of the distinctions present in classical Latin continued to be made, but synthetic forms were often replaced with more analytic ones. Other verb forms changed meaning, and new forms also appeared.
In linguistics, speech or indirect discourse is a grammatical mechanism for reporting the content of another utterance without directly quoting it. For example, the English sentence Jill said she was coming is indirect discourse while Jill said "I'm coming" would be direct discourse. In fiction, the "utterance" might amount to an unvoiced thought that passes through a stream of consciousness, as reported by an omniscient narrator.
In Latin grammar, the subjunctive by attraction is a name given when the verb in a relative clause or a temporal clause which is closely dependent on a subjunctive verb becomes subjunctive itself. The name also applies to subjunctives used when a subordinate clause is "so closely connected with an infinitive as to form an integral part of" it.
Tense–aspect–mood or tense–modality–aspect is an important group of grammatical categories, which are marked in different ways by different languages.
This article discusses the conjugation of verbs in a number of varieties of Catalan-Valencian, including Old Catalan. Each verbal form is accompanied by its phonetic transcription. Widely used dialectal forms are included, even if they are not considered standard in either of the written norms: those of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans and the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua. Other dialectal forms exist, including those characteristic of minor dialects such as Ribagorçan and Algherese and transitional forms of major dialects.
Latin syntax is the part of Latin grammar that covers such matters as word order, the use of cases, tenses and moods, and the construction of simple and compound sentences, also known as periods.
The main Latin tenses can be divided into two groups: the present system, consisting of the present, future, and imperfect; and the perfect system, consisting of the perfect, future perfect, and pluperfect.
A temporal clause is an adverbial clause of time, that is to say, a clause which informs the reader about the time when the action of main verb of the sentence occurred. So in a sentence such as "after I had said this, he went out", the first clause is a temporal clause. The name comes from the Latin word tempus, genitive temporis, 'time".
Conditional clauses in Latin are clauses which start with the conjunction sī 'if' or the equivalent. The 'if'-clause in a conditional sentence is known as the protasis, and the consequence is called the apodosis.
In Latin, there are multiple periphrases for tense and mode. Here we list the most common.
In Latin, there are different modes of indicating past, present and future processes. There is the basic mode of free clauses and there are multiple dependent modes found exclusively in dependent clauses. In particular, there is the 'infinitive' mode for reported satetements and the 'subjunctive' mode for reported questions.
From a semantic perspective, a tense is a temporal circumstance in which an event takes place relative to a given point in time. It is absolute (primary) if it relates the represented event to the time of the speech event and it is relative if it relates the represented event to the time of another event in the context of discourse. In turn, a relative tense may be “relative to absolute” (secondary) if it relates the represented event to the primary tense. Read more about possible tenses in the article on grammatical tense.