These include futures or future perfects with -s- such as iussō 'I will have ordered', faxō 'I will ensure'; subjunctives with -s- such as ausim 'I would dare', faxim 'I would do';[14] archaic subjunctives such as siem, fuam or duim;[15] infinitives in -ier or -assere such as vituperarier or impetrāssere; shortened perfect or pluperfect forms such as dīxe (for dīxisse), ērēpsēmus (for ērēpsissēmus), vīxet (for vīxisset) etc.
[22] In Caesar when a verb is placed initially in the sentence, as in the first example above (videt imminēre hostēs), it is very frequently in the present tense.
[37] Another situation where the use of the historic present is frequent is in utterance verbs, such as fidem dant 'they give a pledge' or ōrant 'they beg'.
The difference is that in this case the two actions are co-extensive:[44] Another idiom that can be mentioned is the phrase longum est, which means 'it would take a long time' or 'it would be tedious'.
[48] Occasionally, however, a present tense can be used in the subordinate clause referring to the future:[48] Polite requests The future can also be used for polite requests, as when Cicero sends greetings to his friend Atticus's wife and daughter: The imperfect indicative tense of regular verbs ends in -bam or -bar in all verbs except sum and possum, when it ends in -ram.
Situation at a particular time A common use of the imperfect is to describe a situation that already existed at a particular moment: Often an expression such as tum 'then' or eō tempore 'at that time' is added: Vivid description The use of the imperfect rather than the perfect can be used to make a scene more vivid, as with this sentence of Cicero's: The passage is commented on by Aulus Gellius.
He says that the use of caedēbātur rather than caesus est creates a 'drawn-out vivid description' (diūtīna repraesentātiō);[62] that is to say, making it seem to the audience that the scene is taking place in front of them.
"'[159] For geographical description, on the other hand, erat is used, describing the landscape was it was at the time of the narrative: The use of fuit here would imply that there used to be a bridge, but that it has now gone.
The pluperfect indicative with fueram and future perfect with fuerō, on the other hand, were used more often in classical Latin: in the Augustan-period writers Hyginus and Vitruvius they even outnumber the normal tenses, and in the travelogue of the pilgrim Egeria (4th century AD), they completely replaced them.
It refers to a previous situation which has now changed: Often, especially from the Augustan period onwards, this tense had no particular anterior meaning but was a mere variation of the perfect passive with sum.
De Melo cites the following example, where the second verb is obviously not anterior to the first: In the Vulgate Bible (4th century A.D.), just as with Cicero, the perfect indicative with fuī is only very rarely used compared with the other double tenses.
The imperfect and pluperfect subjunctives can describe something which should have been done in the past, but which it is now too late for:[332][296] This usage is quite common in Plautus[336] but rare in later Latin.
In indirect questions in a historic context, an imperfect subjunctive usually represents the transformation of a present indicative.
[378] Phrases of the kind nōn dubitō 'I do not doubt' are usually followed by quīn (literally 'how not') and the subjunctive, much like an indirect question: In consecutive (result) clauses, the sequence of tenses rule is not so strictly adhered to.
[387] In the following examples, the perfect subjunctives with fuerit contrast with the ordinary perfect subjunctive tenses, and apparently refer to an earlier event: In the following example, however, the tense may have been chosen simply for euphony rather than meaning: Formation Irregular verbs: Passive and deponent verbs: The form with essem is more common than fuissem in the classical period.
The original words of the following sentence would have been tū, sī aliter fēcerīs, iniūriam Caesarī faciēs 'if you do (will have done) otherwise, you will be doing Caesar a disservice': A shortened or "syncopated" form of the pluperfect subjunctive ending in -sem instead of -sissem is sometimes found, although it is not very common.
In the following example, Cicero contrasts the time when Marcus Claudius Marcellus captured Syracuse (3rd century BC) with the period when Gaius Verres was governor of Sicily (73–70 BC): However, in the following examples, there appears to be little or no difference in meaning between the pluperfect with fuisset and that with esset, and difference is perhaps only one of style: Because the feminine participle + fuisset makes a suitable ending for a hexameter, it is possible that in the following examples the double pluperfect is merely used for metrical convenience, rather than indicating an anterior time.
In the first example, which is spoken by the ghost of Hector to Aeneas, encouraging him to flee from Troy, the tense with fuissent refers to an earlier time when Hector was still alive: The following unfulfillable wish also uses the double pluperfect subjunctive passive: Another example comes from Ovid, referring to the time before the Trojan War started: In the following example Ovid describes the fate of the Athenian princess Aglauros, who was turned to stone out of envy for her sister: The verb sum 'I am', as well as its infinitive esse 'to be', has a future infinitive fore, equivalent to futūrum esse.
In this case there is not necessarily any idea of planning or intention, although there may be:[432] This tense can also be used in primary sequence reported speech, to represent the main clause in either an ideal conditional sentence or a simple future one (the distinction between these two disappears in indirect speech):[435] To avoid ambiguity, the periphrastic future can also be used after nōn dubitō quīn 'I don't doubt that...' when the meaning is future, although this is not as common as in indirect questions: The same meaning is expressed in indirect questions in a past context: If the main verb is in past time, an imperfect version of the periphrastic future subjunctive is used: It is also possible to form an imperfect periphrastic subjunctive with forem instead of essem (the first instance of this is in Sallust):[255] A perfect periphrastic subjunctive can be used with a conditional meaning ('would have done') in hypothetical conditional clauses in indirect questions in primary sequence.
The pluperfect version of the periphrastic subjunctive can be used in a circumstantial cum clause: It can also be used in conditional sentences after sī, as in the following sentence from an imaginary letter from Helen to Paris: Once in Cicero it occurs in the apodosis of an unreal conditional, referring to the inevitability of fate: It can also reflect a potential pluperfect subjunctive ('would have done') in historic sequence in an indirect question:[442] In some authors, such as Livy and Sallust, a potential meaning can be given to the pluperfect subjunctive passive by substituting foret for esset: In other authors, however, the same meaning is expressed using the ordinary pluperfect passive: When used in indirect speech, sometimes this tense is the equivalent of a future perfect passive in the original speech: In each of the above sentences, foret looks to the future, relative to a point in the past.
This occurs occasionally in Plautus and also once in Lucretius (4.635) and once in Virgil's Aeneid, where the archaic form is presumably appropriate for the speech of the god Jupiter: Another old subjunctive is duim, from the verb dō 'I give'.
However, a number of further infinitives are made periphrastically to represent other shades of meaning, such as future and potential, in indirect speech.
An archaic form of the perfect active infinitive, ending in -se (dīxe, dēspexe, intellexe, admisse) is sometimes found in early Latin.
The perfect infinitive with esse merely refers to an event which took place before the time of the verb of speaking (e.g. ('he reported that Marcellus had been killed').
When the verb is active, the simple perfect infinitive is used in a similar context: Another example not in direct speech the following, in which Martial is describing a magnificent he-goat depicted on a cup, and suggests that Phrixus's sister Helle might have preferred to have been riding on this rather than the ram which she fell off: There appear to be no examples of a deponent verb in this tense of the infinitive in classical Latin.
[551] The ending -um does not change for gender or number: Another way of expressing the future in indirect statement is to use the phrase fore ut 'it would be the case that'.
The present imperative mood is the normal tense used for giving direct orders which the speaker wishes to be carried out at once.
Powell, appellāminō is not a genuine archaic form; in early Latin -minō is used only in deponent verbs and is 2nd or 3rd person singular.
'An examination of the usage of the various authors shows that the form in -ūrus did not reach the full status of a participle till the time of Livy.
Up to the time of Caesar and Cicero its use was almost restricted to a combination with the verb esse, making a periphrastic future tense (Woodcock).