338

The Loom oj Language

constructions^ g tradittisfuit (he was betrayed), or traditus ent (he will
be betrayed)
Two tense-forms of Classical Latin (future and future perfect)
disappeared A third (pluperfect} survived only in Ibenan Latin , and a
fourth lost some of its former territory To indicate completion of a
process or its final result, Latin, like other Indo-Euiopean languages
had a verb-form, the perfect^ which corresponds roughly to our com-
PRESFNT AND IMPERFECT TENSE-FORMS OF ROMANCE
VERBS

| FRENCH | SPANISH | LATIN | ITALIAN
I love. | j'aime | atno | anio | amo
etc | tu aunes | amas | amas | ami
| il aune | aria | amat | ama
| nous annons | amamob | amamus | amiamo
| vous aimez | am? is | amatis | amate
| ils aiment | aman | amant | amano
I was | j'aimais | amaba | amabam | amavo
loving, | tu aimais | amabas | amabas | ainavi
etc | il aimait | amaba | amabat | amava
| nous aumons | amabamos | amabamus | amavamo
| vous aimiez | amabais | amabatis | amavate
| ils aimaient | amaoan | ?mabant | amavano
pound past, eg from set there (to write), wnpst (I have written), but
Caesar writes of himself, Caesar urbem occupatam habet_y which is
roughly equivalent to Caesar has occupied the &ty> and Cicero himself
writes, scnptum hdheo (I have written), satts kabeo ddiberatum (I have
deliberated enough) In late Latin the old synthetic perfect form
(cantam = I have sung) was gradually ousted by the periphrastic
construction with habere (to have) or esse (to be), i e cantam by cantatum
habeo, and ^everti (I have returned) by reversus sum The synthetic
form remainedj but came to be confined to the function of a past
definite (cantam = I sang) As such it still persists in literary Fiench,
as in spoken or written Spanish and Italian (he sang Latin tantavit^
French il chanta, Spanish cantd^ Itakan canfb) Frenchmen never
use it in conversation or informal writing
Another tense-form which disappeared in the later stages of living
Latin was the classical future While the verb to have kept its indepen-
dence as a helper to indicate past time, the new analytical future to