Latin tenses (semantics)

In indicative clauses, Latin has three primary tenses and three series of secondary tenses. The primary tenses are the future agam ('I will do'), the present agō ('I am doing'), and the past ēgī ('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.

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 faciam ('I will do'). In Early Latin, there was the "sigmatic future indicative" faxō (also 'I will do').

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 a future state ('he will be dead'), which evolved from the past-in-future event mortuus erit ('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 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').

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"). 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. 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.

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 (videt imminēre hostēs), it is very frequently "present indicative".

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.

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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. 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.

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 ibī 'there', tum 'then', and eō tempore '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 fueram and the compound tertiary past with habueram are uncommon tenses.