[Lexicog] A question on Latin tense labels

[Kenneth C. Hill]

In "Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar" (first published 1867), I find a
discussion (pp. 162-163 of my 1957 reprint of the third edition) of the
"future perfect tense". An example with the future perfect in both clauses
is: Qui: Anto:nium oppresserit, is bellum co:nfe:cerit. 'He who shall have
crushed (crushes) Antony, will have finished (will finish) the war.' There
are other examples cited which might be even more appropriate for Rudy's
question, but they are not translated and I don't know Latin well enough
to evaluate them (or translate them).

There is, though, a parallel formation in Spanish, and we can find 19th
century discussions of the Spanish construction. (My reference here is
Rafael Ángel de la Peña, Gramática teórica y práctica de la lengua
castellana, published in Mexico City, 1898.) Perhaps the following is
close enough to Rudy's example to be relevant: Mañana a las diez ya habrá
llegado el correo. 'Tomorrow at 10 o'clock the mail will have arrived.'
The tense here (in "habrá llegado") is referred to conventionally as
"futuro perfecto de indicativo" (indicative perfect future) or as
"ante-future" (pre-future) by the celebrated Chilean grammarian Andrés
Bello.

The Spanish complex verb constructions line up with those of English
sufficiently well and are so thoroughly studied by Spanish grammarians
that I bet an exactly parallel construction to "I was to have known
myself" is available in Spanish and probably already has an established
label.

I suggest looking for the answer in the work of Spanish grammarians not to
change the subject away from Latin but rather because Spanish has verbal
constructions that are much more like those of English than Latin does and
the Spanish grammatical tradition, like that of English, comes directly
out of the Latin grammatical tradition.

--Ken

--- Rudolph C Troike <rtroike at u.arizona.edu> wrote:
>
> The original question was how to label a sentence from Henry James: "I
> was
> to have known myself." I suggested that "past future perfect" would be
> most appropriate. Now a follow-up question has come as to whether such a
> label was in use in Latin grammars in the period 1850-1900.  I'm not
> quite
> sure of the reason for the question, but thought that I'd pass it along.
> If anyone knows of another list that might be a better audience for the
> question, I'd appreciate knowing of it.
>
> 	Thanks,
>
> 	Rudy Troike



		
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