Future Perfect Participle: Active, Middle, and Passive

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Introduction

<charts, and don’t forget the feminine>

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Intermediate

With what we know about word composition, it should be easy enough to predict forms of the future perfect participle.

Let’s say, for whatever reason, we want to say “it will have been fought.” In indirect statement. Using a participle. Well, πολεμε/ is the verb base that means “fight,” so let’s begin there. Let’s make it perfect by reduplicating that initial π:

          πε/πολεμε/

Now let’s add /σ/ to make it future:

          πε/πολεμε/σ/

We still, for some undetermined reason, want to say “it will have been fought,” which is passive, so let’s add the passive participle marker — with thematic formation, of course, because that’s how the future does it:

          πε/πολεμε/σ/όμενο/

And then, since our hypothetical subject is an “it” and in indirect statement, we’ll add the neuter accusative singular case marker:

          πε/πολεμε/σ/όμενο/ν

But wait! For fun, let’s emphasize the conclusion of this hypothetical conflict and say “it will have been fought to completion” by adding, say, δια/:

          δια/πε/πολεμε/σ/όμενο/ν

When a marker is added to a short vowel, that short vowel regularly lengthens. So with that in mind we get:

          διαπεπολεμησόμενον

And it turns out that this is, somehow, a word actually used in Greek, written once by Thucydides:

ἔπεμψαν δὲ καὶ ἐς τὰς πόλεις πρέσβεις οἱ Συρακόσιοι Κορινθίων καὶ Ἀμπρακιωτῶν καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων, ἀγγέλλοντας … ἢν φθάσωσιν αὐτοὶ πρότερον διαφθείραντες τὸ παρὸν στράτευμα αὐτῶν, διαπεπολεμησόμενον.  And the Syracusans sent ambassadors to the cities of the Corinthians and the Ampraciotes and the Lacedaemonians, reporting that if they themselves acted first by destroying the the army that was already there, the war would have been brought to a conclusion.

—Thucydides 7.25.9

This, in fact, is the only example of a future perfect passive participle in all of extant Greek. (Thanks to Donald Mastronarde for this example.)

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Although no instances of the future perfect middle participle survive in extant Greek, it’s easy enough to predict. For instance:

εὖ ἴσμεν μὲν Σπαρτιάτας τὰς κόμας κεκοσμησομένους. We know well that Spartans will have adorned each other‘s hair.

(See Herodotus 7.208.3 for some context to this sentence.)

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We may likewise predict the future perfect active participle. Take the base κλεπ/. Let’s reduplicate κ to mark it as perfect:

          κε/κλεπ/

Now let’s make it future with /σ/:

          κε/κλεπ/σ/

Then, add the thematic (because that’s what follows the future) active participle suffix /οντ/:

          κε/κλεπ/σ/οντ/

Decline the word by giving it a case ending, put it into a sentence, and voilà:

ἤκουσα οὖν Ἡρακλέα τὸν τρίποδα παρὰ Ἀπόλλωνος κεκλέψοντα. So I heard that Heracles would have stolen the tripod from Apollo.