140. The Latin perfect passive took the sense of a present; _amātus
est_, for instance, under the influence of such phrases as _carus
est_, came to mean ‘he _is_ loved’. This led to the establishment of
an entire passive inflection made up of the perfect participle and the
parts of the verb _ĕsse_; and the old passive forms were gradually
abandoned, leaving no trace (save the perfect participle and possibly
the gerundive) in the Romance languages. So the passive is constructed
in Provençal as in French: ẹs amatz, ęra amatz, fọ amatz, será amatz,
etc.; the participle regularly agrees with the subject in gender and
number. Latin deponent verbs became active: _mŏri_ ＞ morir, _sĕqui_ ＞
seguir.
141. (1) Such phrases as _ĭd habeo factum_ shifted their meaning
from ‘I have it done’, etc., to ‘I have done it’, etc. The Latin
perfect came to be restricted to its aorist sense, and the perfect was
expressed by compounds of _habēre_ with the perfect participle. In
the Romance languages all compound tenses were eventually formed in
this way: ai cantat, avia cantat, aurai cantat, etc. In Provençal the
auxiliary is sometimes ęsser, instead of avẹr, if the main verb is
reflexive, passive, or neuter; ęsser is particularly common with neuter
verbs of motion: sọi vengütz.[112] A participle used with avẹr may
agree in gender and number with the direct object, if there is one: ai
cantat _or_ cantada la cansọ.
(2) The Latin perfect indicative continued to be used as an aorist, and
is the source of the preterit in Provençal, as in the other Romance
languages: _vīdī_ ＞ vi, ‘I saw’. The pluperfect indicative survived in
some regions; in Provençal it is used with the sense of a conditional:
_fŭĕrat_ ＞ fọra,‘he would be’. The future perfect indicative and the
perfect subjunctive did not remain in Provençal: _amavĕro_ = aurai
amat, _amavĕrim_ = aia amat. The pluperfect subjunctive assumed the
functions of the imperfect, which disappeared from nearly every part of
the Romance territory: _audīssem_ (for _audīrem_) ＞ auzis. The perfect
infinitive left no trace: _audīsse_ = avẹr auzit.
142. The Latin future, which was not uniform in the four conjugations,
and, in the third and fourth, was liable to confusion with the
present subjunctive, was gradually replaced by various periphrastic
constructions: instead of _faciam_ people said _factūrus sum_, _dēbeo
facĕre_, _vŏlo facĕre_, _habeo_ (_ad_) _facĕre_, etc. The construction
that prevailed in the greater part of the Empire was _facĕre habeo_, a
combination of the infinitive with the present indicative of _habēre_.
The verb _ĕsse_ was the only one that ultimately retained the old
future beside the new: Pr. ęr, ęrs, ęr, beside serái serás será; in
the plural, only serẹm, serẹtz, serán. The new composite future was
occasionally used by Tertullian, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine, and
became common in Italy by the 6th century.[113]
(2) As an imperfect of the future, there was evolved a combination of
the infinitive and the imperfect or perfect indicative. To correspond
to _dīcit quod venīre habet_, was constructed _dīxit quŏd venīre
habēbat_ (or _habuit_); to match _sī pŏssum, venīre habeo_, was made
_sī potuĭssem, venīre habēbam_ (or _habuī_). In Gaul, as in most of
the Empire, only the imperfect of _habēre_ was used for this purpose.
Traces of such a construction are found as early as the 3d century.
This form is generally called the _conditional_, and it existed in
Provençal side by side with the conditional described in § 141, (2):
sería, serías, sería, etc., beside fọra, fọras, fọra, etc. The
Romance languages developed also a perfect conditional: auría agüt = ‘I
should have had’.
143. (1) The present participle remained in use as an adjective:
_fīlias placentes_ ＞ filhas plazẹns; cf. § 101, (3). In its verbal
function it was replaced by the ablative of the gerund: _vĕnit
accŭrrens_ ＞ _vĕnit accŭrrendo_ ＞ ven acorrẹn. In most Provençal
dialects, however, the present participle and the gerund coincided
in form (_amantem_ and _amando_ both ＞ amán), the gerund being
distinguished from the participle only by its lack of inflection: see §
76, (2).
(2) The gerund retained only the ablative case, the use of which was
considerably extended: see above. In its other cases it was replaced
by the infinitive: _artem dīcendī_ ＞ _artem dīcĕre_ ＞ art de dire. The
supine, too, was replaced by the infinitive: _vīsum vĕnit nōs_ ＞ _vĕnit
nōs vĭdēre_ ＞ ven nọs (a) vezẹr.