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Future expressions in a sixth-century Latin translation of Josephus

  • Shoni Lavie-Driver EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 28, 2023
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Abstract

Over the history of Latin, a number of ways to express futurity evolve and disappear. Perhaps most notably, the future tense is lost in all Romance languages, replaced generally by periphrases with habeo. I present here the expressions of futurity present in the Latin translation of Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities and Against Apion, conducted in sixth-century CE Italy under the aegis of Cassiodorus. I first examine the use of the synthetic future tense, and then suggest that the translators deliberately avoid using habeo + infinitive in any sense. This contradicts recent claims that habeo + infinitive was characteristic of high register usage in Late Latin. I then analyse the use of the present tense to express futurity, the future participle + sum, gerundives as future passive participles and infinitives, and the curious use of debeo and possum. I show a number of changes in the system from Classical Latin, and suggest a new potential route for the development of debeo to express the future in certain Romance varieties.


Corresponding author: Shoni Lavie-Driver, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK, E-mail:

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Published Online: 2023-11-28
Published in Print: 2023-10-26

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