Class meeting for Friday, 2/19
Familiarizing yourself with the future indicative, as presented here, is required.
Class meeting will be optional, and will be organized in two halves:
- 9:15-9:40: optional workshop for first-years and sophomores; drop in with any questions or work on written assignments you want to look at.
- 9:40-10:05: optional workshop for juniors; drop in with any questions or work on written assignments you want to look at.
The future indicative
The future indicative tense expresses a confident statement that something will happen in the future. The future tense exists only in the indicative: there is not future subjunctive.
The future tense is built on the same stem as the present and imperfect tenses, which you find by looking at the first two principal parts. (Another way of saying this: the present, imperfect and future tenses belong to the present system of verb tenses in Latin.)
The way you form the future depends on the conjugation the verb belongs to. (Recall that you can determine the conjugation from the present infintive: the second principal part.)
Future in first two conjugations
In the first two conjugations, you extend the stem with b plus the vowel o (in the first singular), u (in the third plural) or i (in all the other forms), and add the same endings for person/number/voice as always. This is similar to the way you form the imperfect tense (which also exists only in the indicative). Compare these forms.
| Person, number, voice | Future | Imperfect |
|---|---|---|
| third singular active | amabit | amabat |
| third singular passive | amabitur | amabatur |
| third plural active | amabunt | amabant |
| third plural passive | amabuntur | amabantur |
| third singular active | habebit | habebat |
| third singular passive | habebitur | habebatur |
| third plural active | habebunt | habebant |
| third plural passive | habebuntur | habebantur |
Future in the third and fourth conjugations
In the third, third-io and fourth conjugations, the future stem is modified by adding the vowel e (third conjugation) or ie (third-io and fourth), and applying the familiar endings for person/number/voice.
(This applies to all forms except the first singular: the first singular endings are am for the active voice and ar for the passive voice.)
Since the endings are identical, it is important to pay attention to the differences in the vowels of the present indicative, present subjunctive and future indicative. Compare these third singular forms.
| Voice | Present indicative | Present subjunctive | Future indicative |
|---|---|---|---|
| active | ducit | ducat | ducet |
| passive | ducitur | ducatur | ducetur |
| active | capit | capiat | capiet |
| passive | capitur | capiat | capiet |
| active | audit | audiat | audiet |
| passive | auditur | audiatur | audietur |
Practice producing forms
Test yourself by entering the requested form.
Practice identifying forms
Enter your answer formatted as verb: person number tense mood voice. Enter the first principal part for the verb, and spell out the values for each part of the identification.
Example: if you were given facit, you would enter
facio: third singular present indicative active