Future Perfect (was "Ungrammatical ...")

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Sep 1 09:46:49 EDT 1999


At 6:38 AM -0500 9/1/99, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>At 1:49 AM -0700 9/1/99, Al Kidd wrote:
>>My question is: Why did Greek settle on a periphrastic construction for the
>>Future Perfect Active when the concept of using a true Future Perfect
>>Active was not unknown to them (e.g., TEQNXW = I shall be dead, I shall
>>have died)?
> [quite a bit omitted]
>I've checked Smyth on the future perfect and shall forward to the list
>later either what's really relevant to this question or at least the URLs
>to permit anyone who is interested enough to check it out for him or
>herself.

For those who want to check this out, the relevant sections in the online
version of Smyth's Greek Grammar (1st edition) at the Perseus website are:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=smyth+580&vers=english&brow
se=1

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=smyth+658&vers=english&brow
se=1

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=smyth+1955&vers=english&bro
wse=1

I don't find anything here that runs counter to what I argued about
probable reasons for the periphrastic (as opposed to the inflected) form of
the future perfect being much more common.


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu 
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