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.
INFINITIVE, PRESENT PARTICIPLE, AND GERUND.
144. The infinitive endings -āre, -ēre, -īre regularly became -ar, -ẹr, -ir; -ĕre became -re or -er: see § [48], (1) and § [52], (1). Ex.: amāre ＞ amár, vĭdēre ＞ vezẹr, audīre ＞ auzir; tŏllĕre ＞ tǫlre, nascĕre ＞ náisser, dīcere ＞ dire dízer. For shifts of conjugation, see § [137].