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Pluperfect Tense
The pluperfect tense is translated into English by using the auxillary verb had, for example:
| portaveram | I had carried |
The pluperfect tense refers to an action completed before a point in the past, for example:
| I had eaten the cake before the guests arrived. |
The Latin pluperfect uses the imperfect of sum for its personal endings:
| singular | 1st | -eram |
| 2nd | -eras | |
| 3rd | -erat | |
| plural | 1st | -eramus |
| 2nd | -eratis | |
| 3rd | -erant |
This tense also uses a verb’s perfect stem. As with the perfect tense, knowledge of conjugations is of only limited help with this.
Paradigms
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | ||
| singular | 1st | portav-eram | monu-eram | rex-eram | audiv-eram | cep-eram |
| 2nd | portav-eras | monu-eras | rex-eras | audiv-eras | cep-eras | |
| 3rd | portav-erat | monu-erat | rex-erat | audiv-erat | cep-erat | |
| plural | 1st | portav-eramus | monu-eramus | rex-eramus | audiv-eramus | cep-eramus |
| 2nd | portav-eratis | monu-eratis | rex-eratis | audiv-eratis | cep-eratis | |
| 3rd | portav-erant | monu-erant | rex-erant | audiv-erant | cep-erant |
Patterns
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
| The 1st Conjugation is the most predictable for perfect stems: all end in -av- (e.g. porto/portavi), except do/dedi and sto/steti. | Perfect stems in the 2nd Conjugation end in -u- roughly half the time (e.g. timeo/timui, terreo/terrui) but otherwise vary (e.g. sedeo/sedi, rideo/risi). | The 3rd Conjugation is the most unpredictable. An “s” sound is common (e.g. misi, scripsi, discessi, dixi), but practically all need to be learned as though additional vocabulary. | The 4th Conjugation is either like audio/audivi or venio/veni (as in veni, vidi, vici), along with sentio/sensi | Perfect stems in the 5th Conjugation are various, but a change of vowel to an -e- is common (e.g. facio/feci, capio/cepi, iacio/ieci) |