Latin Grammar Mini-Series | Lesson 12 - The Perfect Tense

There are three important rules to remember: (1) The perfect tense represents action completed in the past;  (2) Latin perfect tense forms are often marked by changing the present verb base in any of the following ways: adding -v- or -s- to the end of the present verb base, lengthening the vowel of the base, and/or reduplicating the first consonant of the base;  (3) Perfect-tense verb forms in Latin have only two parts: a base and an ending.  In Latin grammar, “perfect” means literally “completed in the past.” This is the counterpart, in many ways the opposite, of the imperfect, the tense we’ve already studied which shows unfinished or incomplete action in the past. Perfect action is action that happened once and was finished, such as, “I was taking a shower” -- that’s imperfect -- “when the phone rang.” It rang once. I got out of the shower. I picked up the phone. It stopped ringing. So the action was completed in the past. That’s perfect.  The perfect tense also has another important connotation. It often represents past action that has immediate bearing on the present. For instance, “But I have done my homework, sir,” which is crypto-student code for “Stop asking me for it. Here it is,” vs. “Uh, well, I was doing my homework when umm… aliens invaded and probed my brain which is why I didn’t get it done.” “Was doing” represents action that was unfinished in the past and a perfect example of an imperfect excuse.  The prefect system in Latin includes three tenses:  the perfect The pluperfect The future perfect The perfect is best represented by the English modal, or tense marker, “has” or “have,” also “did;” the pluperfect, meaning literally “more perfect,” represents an action that is past in relation to the past -- don’t panic. We’ll get to that in a second -- is the counterpart of the English tense marker “had;” and the future perfect represented by English “will have.”  PERFECT Amavi: “I have loved” Amavimus:“we have loved” Amavisti: “you have loved”  Amavistis: “y’all have loved”  Amavit: “he/she/it has loved” Amaverunt: “they have loved” Please note that all perfect tense verbs in Latin, no matter what conjugation they belong to, form the same way: take the perfect base, add these endings, and you have any perfect-tense, finite verb in Latin. These forms can also be translated as “did” as in “I did love,” a form that is used very often in English when the speaker wants to negate the verb, as in, “I did not love.” Or another possible translation is the simple past: “I loved,” “you loved,” and so on. For right now, please don’t use that translation for the perfect tense. It can be confused with the imperfect. When translating the perfect tense, use only “have/has” or “did.” To form a pluperfect verb, the equivalent in English of “had,” Latin uses these endings:  -eram, -eras, -erat… Recognize these? I hope. This is the imperfect of the verb “to be” here used as an ending in the perfect system creating a finite pluperfect verb: Amaveram: “I had loved” Amaveramus: “we had loved” Amaveras: “you had loved” Amaveratis: “y’all had loved” Amaverat: “he/she/it had loved” Amaverant: “they had loved” Finally the third of the perfect tenses, the future perfect, is formed by taking the perfect base and adding the endings -ero, -eris, -erit, -erimus, -eritis, -erint. It looks a lot like the future of the verb “to be” but there’s one big change: it’s not -erunt in the third-person plural but -erint.  To form a full finite verb in the future-perfect tense, take the base and add the future perfect endings we just recited so the future-perfect of the verb amo would be: Amavero: “I will have loved” Amaverimus: “we will have loved” Amaveris: “you will have loved” Amaveritis: “y’all will have loved” Amaverit: “he/she/it will have loved” Amaverint: “they will have loved” emails: [email protected] [email protected]