The paradigm of the verb in the future perfect
Affirmative | Interrogative |
I shall have spoken He (she, it) will have spoken We shall have spoken You will have spoken They will have spoken | Shall I have spoken? Will he (she, it) have spoken? Shall we have spoken? Will you have spoken? Will they have spoken? |
Negative
I shall not (shan’t) have spoken He (she, it) will not (won’t) have spoken We shall not (shan’t) have spoken You will not (won’t) have spoken They will not (won’t) have spoken |
§ 49. The future perfect is very rarely used either in conversation or in writing.
It is used to denote:
1. An action that both begins and ends before, a definite moment of time in the future (the exclusive future perfect).
"I have no doubt," I said, "that I shall have seen anybody who is anybody by then."
You will have got my cable and I shall have received your answer long before this letter reaches you.
The moment in the future before which the action is to begin and end may be indicated by appropriate adverbials or other verbs denoting future actions, or by the whole context or situation.
2. An action that begins before a certain moment of time in the future and goes up to it or into it.This is the case when the action in question is expressed by statal verbs, which do not admit of continuous forms, or else by certain actional durative verbs, such as to live, to study, to work, etc., which denote a process (the inclusive future perfect).
She will have been in your service fifteen years next year.
The future perfect continuous
§ 50. Formation. The future perfect continuous is formed analytically by means of the auxiliary to be in the future perfect (shall/will have been) and participle I of the notional verb.
Their interrogative, negative and negative-interrogative forms are built similar to other future forms.
The paradigm of the verb in the future perfect continuous
Affirmative | Interrogative | |||
I We | shall have been speaking | Shall | I we | have been speaking |
![]() ![]() ![]() | will have been speaking | Will | he (she, it) you they | have been speaking? |
Negative
![]() |
I We | shall not (shan't) have been speaking | |
![]() | will not (won't) have been speaking | |
§ 51. The future perfect continuous is very rarely used, because situations which require it very seldom arise. It denotes actions which begin before a certain moment of time in the future and go on up to that moment or into it:
I shall have been living there for five years next February.
Future in the past tenses
§ 52. There are four more future tense verb forms in English: the future in the past indefinite, the future in the past continuous, the future in the past perfect, the future in the past perfect continuous, which differ from the previously discussed forms. They refer the actions not to the actual future, but to the future viewed as such from the standpoint of past time.
The future in the past forms are dependent, as they are used mainly in object clauses in reported speech after verbs in the past tense forms.
The most frequently used is the future in the past indefinite (the past simple).
§ 53. Formation. All the future in the past forms are analytical. They are formed by means of the auxiliaries should and would and the corresponding form of the notional verb (should speak, should be speaking, should have spoken, should have been speaking)*.
* The contracted form for both ‘would’ and ‘should’ is ‘d: I’d speak...