Future perfect

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Dingbats
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Future perfect

Post by Dingbats »

I don't think I've ever used or seen a future perfect since I started learning Latin 3/4 of a year ago. When do you use them? Are there any cases where you have to use them?

cweb255
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Post by cweb255 »

Future Perfect is the action that occurs before another action that has not yet taken place. I've translated them before, though not off the top of my head is a place where.

Dingbats
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Post by Dingbats »

Hmm... that seems logical, that's quite how you use it in English too. Like: Antequam te videbo, eum videro?

Turpissimus
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Post by Turpissimus »

FP is formed from the future tense of sum tacked on to the perfect stem. It therefore looks rather like the perfect subjunctive (but it lackes this subjunctives long i in the first person plural, and second persons).

It's used in rather more circumstances than its English counterpart. If you're narrating a sequence, and future action is completed before another (When we arm the inhabitants, we shall conquer the Romans) the the future perfect is used in the when-clause. e.g.

Ubi/Si incolas armaverimus, Romanos superabimus

Interestingly, Latin does not do this in narration of past tense, when it uses ubi/antequam/postquam/simulac/ut but does with cum/quod/quia etc:

Simulac Caesarem vidi, domum properavi ut uxorem colloquar.

Amicum in Graecia non vidi quod in Asiam navigaverat.

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