Editing Grammatical tense (section)

=== Latin ===
{{main|Latin tenses}}
[[Latin]] is traditionally described as having six verb paradigms for tense (the Latin for "tense" being ''tempus'', plural ''tempora''):
* [[Present tense|Present]] ''(praesēns)''
* [[Future tense|Future]] ''(futūrum)''
* [[Imperfect]] ''(praeteritum imperfectum)''

* [[Perfect (grammar)|Perfect]] ''(praesēns perfectum)''<!-- praeteritum perfectum is the pluperfect, see below-->
* [[Future perfect]] ''(futūrum perfectum)''
* [[Pluperfect]] ''(plūs quam perfectum, praeteritum perfectum)''

Imperfect tense verbs represent a past process combined with so called [[imperfective aspect]], that is, they often stand for an ongoing past action or state at a past point in time (see [[Latin tenses (semantics)#Secondary present|secondary present]]) or represent habitual actions (see [[Latin tenses with modality]]) (e.g. 'he was eating', 'he used to eat'). The perfect tense combines the meanings of a simple past ('he ate') with that of an English perfect tense ('he has eaten'), which in ancient Greek are two different tenses (aorist and perfect).

The pluperfect, the perfect and the future perfect may also realise [[relative tense]]s, standing for events that are past at the time of another event (see [[Latin tenses (semantics)#Secondary past|secondary past]]): for instance, {{lang|la|mortuus erat}}, {{lang|la|mortuus est}}, {{lang|la|mortuus erit}} may stand for respectively '{{lang|en|he had died}}', '{{lang|en|he has died}}' and '{{lang|en|he will have died}}'.

Latin verbs are inflected for tense and aspect together with [[grammatical mood|mood]] (indicative, subjunctive, infinitive, and imperative) and [[grammatical voice|voice]] (active or passive). Most verbs can be built by selecting a verb stem and adapting them to endings. Endings may vary according to the speech role, the number and the gender of the subject or an object. Sometimes, verb groups function as a unit and supplement inflection for tense (see [[Latin periphrases]]). For details on verb structure, see [[Latin tenses]] and [[Latin conjugation]].