Latin Perfect and Pluperfect Subjunctive: amaverim, amavissem

The perfect subjunctive is the perfect stem plus -erim. The pluperfect subjunctive is the perfect infinitive plus -m. Both mark an action earlier than the main verb: the perfect after a present main verb, the pluperfect after a past one.

Both tenses on one screen

Here is amo in both. Look down each column at what stays fixed: amav- and the tense sign.

The same two tenses on the verbs you use most. Only the perfect stem changes:

No irregular forms. The irregular verbs did their irregular work in the perfect (fui, tuli, potui); from there both subjunctives are mechanical.

The perfect subjunctive: stem plus -erim

Take the perfect, drop its -i, and add -erim, -eris, -erit, -erimus, -eritis, -erint:

• Nescio cur venerit. - I do not know why he came.

Perfects in -avi and -ivi often shorten, dropping the -v- and sometimes a syllable:

These are spellings, not new tenses. Recognise them and move on.

The pluperfect subjunctive: the infinitive trick again

The imperfect subjunctive is the present infinitive plus an ending. The pluperfect does the same with the perfect infinitive:

If you can say to have done, you can build it: fecisse gives fecissem.

It is the easiest subjunctive to spot: -iss- plus a personal ending is the pluperfect subjunctive and nothing else. St John uses it to set up a scene:

• Et cum hoc dixisset, ostendit eis manus et latus. - And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. (John 20:20, in the Vulgate)

Passive and deponent forms

Neither tense has a one-word passive. Use the participle with the subjunctive of sum: sim for the perfect, essem for the pluperfect.

The participle agrees with its subject, as in every perfect passive:

• Quaerit num urbs capta sit. - He asks whether the city has been captured.

Deponents use the same shape and keep their active meaning: secutus sim, I followed; locutus esset, he had spoken.

Perfect subjunctive or future perfect?

Without macrons, the two are spelled the same in five persons out of six:

Only -erim against -ero is safe. So let the clause decide:

Ne feceris has no past meaning at all: it is simply Latin's ordinary don't, beside noli facere. Do not translate it you will not have done.

The sequence of tenses, complete

A subjunctive in a subordinate clause takes its tense from two questions. Is the main verb present or past? Is the subordinate action earlier than it, or not?

In English: he asks what I am doing, he asks what I did; he asked what I was doing, he asked what I had done.

Primary main verbs (present, future, future perfect) take the present or the perfect subjunctive. Historic main verbs (imperfect, perfect, pluperfect) take the imperfect or the pluperfect. A perfect that means have done sometimes counts as primary, though it often takes historic sequence anyway.

A clear future in an indirect question uses the -urus participle: quaerit quid facturus sim, he asks what I am going to do. That belongs to indirect questions.

Where you will meet them

In the unreal condition and the wish, the pluperfect does not mean earlier: it marks something that did not happen. The tense of a wish shows how much hope is left:

Mistakes English speakers make

When the question is what did he do?, the main verb picks the tense:

That is the classical rule. Historians sometimes keep a perfect subjunctive after a past main verb for vividness, and later Latin is looser; write it the classical way.

And four reading slips:

What to do next

1. Write out facio in both tenses, active and passive, from feci and factus alone.
2. Draw the sequence table from memory: present or past main verb, then earlier or not.
3. Then meet the clauses that use it: purpose, result and cum, indirect commands and indirect questions.