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 habety 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