Comparing tenses

[laepelba]

I am starting a new workbook (!!!) on the subjunctive. One of the early chapters is about the sequence of tenses, and uses indicative and subjunctive forms of similar sentence structures to compare sequences.

There are two sentences (both happen to be in the indicative) for which I don't understand (or possibly don't agree with?) the book's English explanation/translation.

1)
Spanish sentence: Creo que ella habrá venido.
English sentence: I believe she has come.
My question: Shouldn't the English read something more like "I believe she will have come."??

2)
Spanish sentence: Creía que ella habría venido.
English sentence: I believed she had come.
My question: Shouldn't the English read something more like "I believe she would have come."??

Thanks!!

[Luna Azul]

I totally agree with you, laepelba. The first sentence in Spanish would be said talking about a possibility for the action to happen in the future:

"Creo que ella (ya) habrá venido para cuando lleguen los niños (mañana)"

The second sentence refers to a possibility that should have happened in the past:

"Creía que ella (ya) habría venido para cuando los niños llegaran (ayer)

Both sentences in English do not express possibility but a fact.

I hope my explanation makes sense to you.

L.A.

[laepelba]

Thanks, Luna! I definitely appreciate your input! You were (still are) a teacher of English-speaking students learning Spanish, right? I love getting input from someone who has answered questions like mine from many students over the years.

[aleCcowaN]

They're instances of future indicative used as a mark of conjecture, like "no sé si lo tendrá aún" ("I'm not sure if she still has it") applied to present and not to some future event.

Creo que (ella) habrá venido ---> I suppose she came
Creía que ella habría venido ---> I supposed she had come

[laepelba]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

They're instances of future indicative used as a mark of conjecture, like "no sé si lo tendrá aún" ("I'm not sure if she still has it") applied to present and not to some future event.

Creo que (ella) habrá venido ---> I suppose she came
Creía que ella habría venido ---> I suppose she had come

I don't necessarily understand that.

Are you saying that the use of "habrá" creates the conjecture? But doesn't the use of "creer" do that? Wouldn't "creo que ella vino" mean "I suppose she came"?

And isn't "creía" past tense? So the supposition happens in the past, right? So doesn't "creía que ...." mean "I supposed that...." And why use the conditional if you don't mean "would have come"?

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by laepelba

I don't necessarily understand that.

Are you saying that the use of "habrá" creates the conjecture? But doesn't the use of "creer" do that? Wouldn't "creo que ella vino" mean "I suppose she came"?

"Creer" is a state of the mind; the state of the mind may include a conjecture. It's English the language which disambiguates and add nuances by paying a lot of attention to semantics. Not that Spanish doesn't, but it relies in grammar first so vocabulary is more flexible.

Use of future indicative means the speaker "guess" something is real, but s/he has no way to confirm it at the moment; that confirmation will supposedly occur in the future through trusted sources or by future developments which won't contradict the hypothesis.

This is also another case of focal/non-focal use (like "quizá/a lo mejor")

Originally Posted by laepelba

And isn't "creía" past tense? So the supposition happens in the past, right? So doesn't "creía que ...." mean "I supposed that...." And why use the conditional if you don't mean "would have come"?

[Tense corrected]

The conditional is used just because if it happened in present time you'd use future tense, not even for it being "hypothetical". Consecutia temporum etsi pereat mundus. It's like a "should is the past of shall" thing.

Anyway, that sentence "Creía que ella habría venido." requires a hell of a context to be the best choice in Spanish, and you hardly "hear" it. For speech it suffices with "creía que había venido".

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Luna Azul

The first sentence in Spanish would be said talking about a possibility for the action to happen in the future:

"Creo que ella (ya) habrá venido para cuando lleguen los niños (mañana)"

That is no doubt correct, but it could also apply to the present. Suppose somebody is travelling somewhere and has promised to call you when they arrived. They don't call, and you guess that either they have forgotten to call, or they have, say, had an accident. You surmise that they have just forgotten, but the habrá venido relates to the present, as does I believe they will have arrived (by now).

I'm not sure that helps the discussion much, other than to point out that the future perfect does not necessarily apply just to the future, but can also indicate conjecture, in both Spanish and English.

[Luna Azul]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

They're instances of future indicative used as a mark of conjecture, like "no sé si lo tendrá aún" ("I'm not sure if she still has it") applied to present and not to some future event.

This is correct. We use the future in this type of sentence. The usual translation for that sentence in English is "I wonder if she/he still has it" but of course it can also be translated as "I don't know if he/she still has it"

Very frequently we use it as an interrogation: "¿Será que todavía/aún lo tiene?", "¿Todavía lo tendrá?" = "I wonder if he/she still has it"

As a statement we usually use the subjunctive: "No sé si todavía lo tenga" but the indicative can also be used: "No sé si todavía lo tiene".

As for laepelba's original sentence, I think I figured out why it sounded so weird to me. That is a sentence I wouldn't say using the verb "creer" but "imaginar": "Me imagino que habrá venido". Also, I'd probably put "ya" to make it more emphatic: "Me imagino que ya habrá venido".

I think the last sentence will not generate confusion. It's very understandable and it means "I suppose that she has come".

I may be wrong, of course..

Originally Posted by Perikles

That is no doubt correct, but it could also apply to the present. Suppose somebody is travelling somewhere and has promised to call you when they arrived. They don't call, and you guess that either they have forgotten to call, or they have, say, had an accident. You surmise that they have just forgotten, but the habrá venido relates to the present, as does I believe they will have arrived (by now).

You're right Perikles. That should be the translation for that sentence in English, as laepelba said. I went a little further and used it as a possibility for the future, but it can also be used for the present in both languages.

So, I believe we are in agreement.

[aleCcowaN]

Oh, my! So I discarded English future perfect as conveying guess or conjecture -what I must've learned in some far past- because I believed I was inventing an English use departing from Spanish grammar.

So "they will have arrived by now" ("ya habrán llegado") uses present perfect for actions performed also in the past. Doesn't it?

Can I use it to report what my conjectures were at some moment in the past? For instance "And thinking they would have arrived by then to a safe place, I called the police".

Anyway, the use of future tenses as a mark of "reasoned guess" looks to me as having a wider scope in Spanish. I mean, when I read "Creo que ella habrá venido" I immediately imagine "I suppose she has come" but I can't parse a sentence like #1's "I believe she will have come." (In fact the unique instance of it showed by Google is this very thread)

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Oh, my! So I discarded English future perfect as conveying guess or conjecture -what I must've learned in some far past- because I believed I was inventing an English use departing from Spanish grammar.

So "they will have arrived by now" ("ya habrán llegado") uses present perfect for actions performed also in the past. Doesn't it?)

I would not go as far as that, because (in my example) it relates to the present state (which is what the perfect tense does - it describes an action in the past specifically to relate to a present situation, so strictly is a present tense. I have eaten = I'm not hungry, and so on). But I'm not sure whether there is a clear distinction between future perfect and a conjecture, because "They will have arrived by now" and "surely, they must have arrived by now" are only to be differentiated by the tone of expression.

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Can I use it to report what my conjectures were at some moment in the past? For instance "And thinking they would have arrived by then to a safe place, I called the police".

This is the correct equivalent of the future perfect, but in the past. You can't use the future perfect as an alternative here.

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Anyway, the use of future tenses as a mark of "reasoned guess" looks to me as having a wider scope in Spanish. I mean, when I read "Creo que ella habrá venido" I immediately imagine "I suppose she has come" but I can't parse a sentence like #1's "I believe she will have come." (In fact the unique instance of it showed by Google is this very thread)

Yes, I think the scope is wider in Spanish. But in English, the "I believe she will have come" is a correct future perfect used as a conjecture, even if Google doesn't find it.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Perikles

I would not go as far as that, because (in my example) it relates to the present state (which is what the perfect tense does - it describes an action in the past specifically to relate to a present situation, so strictly is a present tense. I have eaten = I'm not hungry, and so on). But I'm not sure whether there is a clear distinction between future perfect and a conjecture, because "They will have arrived by now" and "surely, they must have arrived by now" are only to be differentiated by the tone of expression.

Thank you a lot! You're right, maybe I was thinking in the lines of "They will be arrived by now".

About the distinction between future perfect and a conjecture, the same about "ya habrán llegado" and "ya deben haber llegado" (the first one is a "personal" estimation; the second one is the general expectation having all developed as it uses to do in similar situations)

Originally Posted by Perikles

This is the correct equivalent of the future perfect, but in the past. You can't use the future perfect as an alternative here.

So far, both languages seem to have parallel structures (I can't help thinking any moment something will burst and "mandará todo al corner" -using a football analogy-)

Originally Posted by Perikles

Yes, I think the scope is wider in Spanish. But in English, the "I believe she will have come" is a correct future perfect used as a conjecture, even if Google doesn't find it.

... including when "coming" has happened in a previous moment? Suppose we all know she came but nobody knows when she did; some bloke could say "(Supongo que/...) Habrá venido ayer" as a conjecture. Can we say "She will have come yesterday" with the same value?

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

... including when "coming" has happened in a previous moment? Suppose we all know she came but nobody knows when she did; some bloke could say "(Supongo que/...) Habrá venido ayer" as a conjecture. Can we say "She will have come yesterday" with the same value?

OK, I suppose you could say that, but it would be more usual to say "She must have come yesterday".

I think the whole issue is clouded by an uncertainty about the force of a future in English. I'm not an expert, so I can't explain the development of the periphrastic future tenses, and the extent to which any future tense has an element of conjecture about it.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Perikles

OK, I suppose you could say that, but it would be more usual to say "She must have come yesterday".

I think the whole issue is clouded by an uncertainty about the force of a future in English. I'm not an expert, so I can't explain the development of the periphrastic future tenses, and the extent to which any future tense has an element of conjecture about it.

Thank you very much! You are 'expert enough', believe me.

I can say as a native speaker that when I hear "habrá venido ayer" I instantly understand the whole thing being set in the past as a conjecture and the only action in that part of the speech; and when I hear "para entonces ya habrá venido" I instantly understand the whole thing being set in the future, as an action that is previous to another action -not in the sentence-. Instantly means 1/5th of a second, that is, it means grammar.

So,

"creo que habrá venido" only can be a conjecture in the past as "haber venido" is the object -logically speaking- of "creído" and not any coordinated action; and

"creía que habría venido" is a conjecture, the exactly same situation in the past.

Both uses are "educated", both oral and written, but most people won't understand them well, hence they avoid such uses and understand by context. To a half of the supposedly "native Spanish speakers" that is just Martian. The outstanding French movie Entre les murs comes to mind, specially the scenes with the students not understanding l'imparfait and le subjonctif and arguing "people on the streets ain't speak that way".

[Perikles]

I've just noticed this in a BBC news report about an inventor:

You may not have heard of him but you'll have used his products

Here, the future perfect is used to express a guess/certainty about the past which you did not know about.

[aleCcowaN]

Excellent! It translates almost literally:

"Puede no haber [escuchado/oído] (nunca) de él pero (seguramente) habrá utilizado sus productos."

The following is very telling about how Spanish works:

...pero quizá haya utilizado sus productos.
...pero probablemente haya utilizado sus productos.
...pero seguramente habrá utilizado sus productos.
...pero de seguro ha utilizado sus productos. (or "con seguridad")

[in the last pair, adverb and adverbial phrases can be swapped, but it's less frequent]