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Perfects in Indo-European Languages and Beyond
Edited by Robert Crellin and Thomas Jügel
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 352] 2020
► pp. 549–590

Chapter 16
The perfect system in Latin

| University of Cambridge

The Latin perfect system is argued to denote that an eventuality described by a predicate terminates prior to some moment in time, whether utterance time in the case of the ‘present’ perfect, or reference/topic time, in the case of the perfect infinitive, past and future forms. The ‘present’ perfect is argued to function as a perfective, while the past, future and infinitive perfect are argued to denote anteriority. Additional conditions are considered in order to explain the behaviour with state and achievement predicates. The participle in *-to- generally denotes that an eventuality described by the predicate terminates prior to topic time, as well as that an event’s poststate (if any) holds at topic time. As such the participle is generally passive in diathetical orientation, although there are exceptions. In certain kinds of predicate, namely those describing extent and mental state, the perfect loses direct reference to a prior event and refers only to an eventuality’s poststate.

Keywords: tense, viewpoint aspect, resultative, perfective, poststate, anterior, synthetic, analytic, non-active
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Formal overview
    • 1.2The problem of the semantics of the Latin perfect
    • 1.3Periodization of Latin
  • 2.Frameworks, terminology and definitions
    • 2.1Viewpoint aspect
    • 2.2Tense
    • 2.3Situation types
    • 2.4Conceptual moments
    • 2.5Change of state
    • 2.6Resultative
    • 2.7The semantics ~ pragmatics interface
  • 3.The semantics of the EL and CL perfect stems
    • 3.1Synthetic present perfect
      • 3.1.1Semantics and the sequence of tenses
      • 3.1.2Atomic predicates
      • 3.1.3States
      • 3.1.4Change of state
      • 3.1.5Gnomic uses
    • 3.2Synthetic past and future perfects
      • 3.2.1Semantics
      • 3.2.2Atomic predicates
      • 3.2.3States
      • 3.2.4Change of state
      • 3.2.5A note on the future perfect
    • 3.3Synthetic perfect infinitive
    • 3.4Defective synthetic forms
    • 3.5Participle in -tu- < *-to-
    • 3.6Analytic perfect
  • 4.Conclusion: Unity in the semantics of the perfect system?
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Formal semantics symbols and abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 23 September 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.352.16cre
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