Primary tenses
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.Future
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 ('I will do'). In Early Latin, there was the 'sigmatic future indicative' (also 'I will do'). For verbs of recalling such as ('I remember'), ('I hate'), ('I know') and some verbs of states such as ('is dead') and ('is divided'), inflections and periphrases that usually construe a past-in-future as in ('I will have done') have their meanings reduced to a primary future: there is ('I will remember') evolved from ('I will have memorized') and there is for either the future state ('he will be dead') or the past-in-future event ('he will have died').Present
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 ('I remember'), ('I hate'), ('I know') and verbs of resulting states such as ('is dead') and ('is divided'), inflections and periphrases that usually construe a past-in-present as in ('I have done') have their meanings reduced to a primary present: there is ('I remember') evolved from ('I have memorized') and there is for either a present state ('he is dead') or a past-in-present event ('he has died'). Similarly, the 'present indicative' auxiliary in "habeō" perfect periphrasis as in 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'). In contrast, the 'present indicative' in "teneō" perfect periphrasis ('hold' or 'keep') represents the process of actively keeping an object in a given state while one speaks.Past
The primary past is the past relative to the time of speech. In biographies, past events are usually represented by 'perfect indicative' verbs. 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. In particular, past speech events are often represented by 'present indicative' verbs when reporting what other people said: e.g. ('they gave a pledge') or ('they begged'). More than half the 'present indicative' verbs for past events in Caesar's books are of this kind. 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. 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 (), it is very frequently 'present indicative'. For verbs of recalling such as ('I remember'), ('I hate'), ('I know') and verbs of resulting states such as ('is dead') and ('is divided'), inflections and periphrases that usually construe a past-in-past as in ('I had done') have their meanings reduced to a primary past: there is ('I remembered') evolved from ('I had memorized') and there is 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 became progressively more common, though still less common than the simple past with a 'perfect indicative' verb.Secondary tenses
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.Secondary future
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. , ‘am oingto 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. , '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. , ‘was about to do’) represents a person's past plan of action. Although less common than the future periphrases with , future periphrases with a ‘perfect indicative’ auxiliary such as are also found.Secondary present
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'', ''faciō'', ''faciēbam'' and the compound secondary present is realised by the periphrasis ''facere'' + ''coeperō'', ''coepī'', ''coeperam''. The verb group is often accompanied by spatial and temporal adjuncts such as 'there', 'then', and 'at that moment'.Secondary past
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''.Tertiary tenses
Tertiary past
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 and the compound tertiary past with are uncommon tenses.Bibliography
Formal descriptions
*De Melo, Wolfgang David Cirilo (2007a), ''The Sigmatic Future in Archaic Latin.'' in De Melo, Wolfgang David Cirilo, ''The Early Latin Verb System: Archaic Forms in Plautus, Terence, and Beyond'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 171–190 *De Melo, Wolfgang David Cirilo (2007b), ''Simple Future and Future Perfect in Archaic Latin.'' in De Melo, Wolfgang David Cirilo, ''The Early Latin Verb System: Archaic Forms in Plautus, Terence, and Beyond'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 21–50 *Devine, Andrew M. & Laurence D. Stephens (2006), ''Latin Word Order. Structured Meaning and Information.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. *Galdi, Giovanbattista (2016). ''On 'coepi'/'incipio' + infinitive: some new remarks.'' Chapter in Adams, James Noel and Vincent, Nigel. ''Early and late Latin: continuity or change?'' Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, p. 246-264 *Haverling, Gerd V.M. (2002)Functional descriptions
*Aerts, Simon (2018)Grammar books
*Touratier, Christian (2013). "Lateinische Grammatik - linguistische Einführung in die lateinische Sprache". WBG: Darmstadt *Gildersleeve, B. L. & Gonzalez Lodge (1895). ''Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar''. 3rd Edition. (Macmillan) *Guerreira, Augustín Ramos (2021), “Tiempo y Aspecto” in José Miguel Baños Baños, “Sintaxis Latina”, Vol. I, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid. ISBN 978-8400108250 *Pinkster, Harm (1990)References
Citations
{{notelist-lr, 20em Tenses (semantics) Grammatical tenses