Future perfect

This article is about the verb form. For other uses, see Future perfect (disambiguation).

The future perfect is used to describe an event that is expected or planned to happen before another event in the future. It is a grammatical combination of the future tense, or other marking of future time, and the perfect, itself a combination of tense and aspect.

English

In English, the tense is formed thus:

subject	+	shall, will	+	have	+	past participle
I		shall		have		gone."

This is sometimes shortened with the contraction of 'll for shall or will: I'll have been hit, you'll have been paid, etc. To make this form negative, one simply adds not between will or shall and have. For the contracted form, will not becomes won't and shall not becomes shan't: I won't have been speaking, you shan't have been speaking, etc.

The English future perfect places the action relative only to the absolute future reference point but provides no information on location in time relative to the present : for example, If it rains tomorrow, we will have worked in vain yesterday.

The time of perspective of the English future perfect can be shifted from the present to the past by replacing will with its past tense form would, thus effectively creating a "past of the future of the past" construction in which the indicated event or situation occurs before a time that occurs after the past time of perspective (but the event or situation must occur after the time of perspective): In 1982, I knew that by 1986 I would have already gone to prison.

Unlike the English present perfect, the future perfect permits the use of a specific time marker for the action: I will have done it on the previous Tuesday is correct, while the present perfect formulation I have done it last Tuesday is incorrect.

An obsolete term found in old grammars for the English future perfect is the "second future tense."

Spanish

In Spanish, the future perfect is formed as such:

subject	+	future of haber	+	past participle
yo		habré		hablado
I		will have		spoken

The future of haber is formed by the future stem haber + the endings -é, -ás, -á, -emos, -éis, -án. The past participle of a verb is formed by adding the endings -ado and -ido to ar and er/ir verbs, respectively. However, there are a few irregular participles, some of the more common ones listed here:

abrir: abierto
cubrir: cubierto
decir: dicho
escribir: escrito
freír: frito
hacer: hecho
morir: muerto
poner: puesto
ver: visto
volver: vuelto

Be aware that verbs within verbs also have the same participle, for example, predecir ("to predict') would be predicho; suponer ("to suppose") would be supuesto. Also, satisfacer ("to satisfy") is close to hacer ("to do") in that the past participle is satisfecho.

To make the tense negative, one simply adds no before the form of haber: yo no habré hablado. For use with reflexive verbs, one puts the reflexive pronoun before the form of haber: from bañarse ("to take a bath"), yo me habré bañado; negative: yo no me habré bañado.

French

The French future perfect, called futur antérieur, is formed similarly to Spanish:

subject	+	future of avoir or être	+	past participle
j'		aurai		parlé
I		will have		spoken

Verbs that use être in the past ("House of Être" verbs, reflexive verbs) also use être in forming the present perfect. For example, je serai venu(e) uses the future of être because of the action verb, venir (to come), which uses être in the past.

To form the future form of the auxiliary verbs, one uses the future stem and adds the endings -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont. Both avoir and être have irregular future stems; while, with the exception of -re verbs, most verbs use the infinitive as the future stem (e.g. je parler ai, I will speak), the future stem of avoir "is" aur, and that of être is ser.

To form the past participle in French, one usually adds -é, -i, and -u to the roots of -er, -ir, and -re verbs, respectively. However, there are many exceptions to this rule, including these commonly used ones (and all of their related verbs):

• faire: fait
• mettre: mis
• ouvrir: ouvert
• prendre: pris
• venir: venu

Verbs related to mettre ("to put"): promettre ("to promise"); to ouvrir: offrir ("to offer"), souffrir ("to suffer"); to prendre ("to take"): apprendre ("to learn"), comprendre ("to understand"); to venir ("to come"): revenir ("to come again"), devenir ("to become").

When using être as the auxiliary verb, one must make sure that the past participle agrees with the subject: je serai venu ("I [masc.] will have come"), je serai venue ("I [fem.] will have come"); nous serons venus ("We [masc. or mixed] will have come"), nous serons venues ('We [fem.] will have come"). Verbs using avoir do not need agreement.

To make this form negative, one simply adds ne (n' if before vowel) before the auxiliary verb and pas after it: je n'aurai pas parlé; je ne serai pas venu. For reflexive verbs, one puts the reflexive pronoun before the auxiliary verb: from se baigner ("to take a bath"), je me serai baigné; negative: je ne me serai pas baigné.

German

The future perfect in German is formed in a similar fashion to English by taking the simple future of the past infinitive, i.e. one uses the simple future of the auxiliary sein (= ich werde sein, du wirst sein etc.) or haben (= ich werde haben, du wirst haben etc.) and the verb you conjugate in the past participle (ich werde gemacht haben, du wirst gemacht haben etc.). For example:

• Ich werde etwas geschrieben haben.

"I will have written something."

• Morgen um diese Uhrzeit werden wir bereits die Mathe-Prüfung gehabt haben.

"Tomorrow at the same time we already will have had the math exam."

• Es wird ihm gelungen sein

"He will have succeeded."

• Wir werden angekommen sein

"We will have arrived."

Dutch

The Dutch future perfect tense is very similar to the German future perfect tense. It is formed by using the verb zullen ("shall"), then placing the past participle and hebben ("to have") or zijn ("to be") after it. Example:

Ik zal iets geschreven hebben.

"I shall something written have."

"I will have written something."

Greek

In Modern Greek, the future perfect is formed with the future particle θα tha, an auxiliary verb (έχω or είμαι écho, íme "to have" or "to be"), and the infinitive or particple.

• "I will have finished by then"

  Θα έχω τελειώσει ... ("have" + infinitive)

  Tha écho teliósi ...

• "I will be hired by then"

  θα είμαι προσληφθείς ... ("be" + participle)

  Tha íme proslifthís ...

Latin

In Latin conjugation the future perfect is found by using the perfect stem + a declined future being verb (ero). An exception is that the active indicative 3rd person plural is formed from the perfect stem + erint, instead of + erunt. E.g., amaverint, not amaverunt.

The future perfect active is formed thus:

perfect stem	+	future perfect suffix	+	thematic vowel	+	person and number ending
dix-		-er-		-i-		-mus
We shall have spoken

The future perfect passive is formed thus:

perfect passive participle	+	future of sum
amātus		erō
have been loved		I will

Italian

The future perfect is used to say that something will happen in the future, but before the time of the main sentence. It is called futuro anteriore and is formed by the auxiliary verbs "to be" (essere) and "to have" (avere) in the future simple tense -transitive or intransitive verb-, adding the past participle. For example:

Io avrò mangiato ("I will have eaten")

Io sarò andato/a ("I will have gone")

It is used for the Italian deduction in the past as the same meaning of "must"; also for the English expression "By the time/When I have done this, you will have done that" Italian uses the double future : "By the time/When I avrò fatto this, you avrai fatto that".

Serbo-Croatian

It is usually restricted only to conditional clauses. It is formed from a conjugated form of auxiliary verb biti ("to be") in the imperfective aspect plus past participle, which can be in any aspect and is conjugated for gender and number. Since Serbo-Croatian has a developed aspect system this tense is considered redundant.

Kad budem pojeo... ("When I will have eaten...")

Nakon što budeš gotov... ("After you will have been done...")

See also

• Grammatical aspect
• Grammatical tense
• Perfect (grammar)
  • Present perfect
  • Pluperfect