Future Perfect

5. The future perfect

     a. Use

     b. Formation

     c. Questions and negative statements

5. The future perfect
a. Use
The Future Perfect tense is used to refer to a non-continuous action which will be completed by a certain time in the future. In the following examples, the verbs in the Future Perfect tense are underlined.

e.g. She will have finished the work by Wednesday.
      I will have cleaned the room before the guests arrive.
      They will have eaten breakfast by the time he gets up.

In these examples, the use of the Future Perfect indicates that the actions of finishing the work, cleaning the room, and eating breakfast will have been completed before the coming of Wednesday, the arrival of the guests, and his getting up take place.

b. Formation
The Future Perfect of any verb is formed from the Simple Future of the auxiliary to have, followed by the past participle of the verb. For instance, the Future Perfect of the verb to work is conjugated as follows:

I will (shall) have worked

you will have worked

he will have worked

she will have worked

it will have worked

we will (shall) have worked

they will have worked

c. Questions and negative statements
As is the case with other English tenses, questions and negative statements in the Future Perfect are formed using the first auxiliary.

Questions are formed by placing the first auxiliary before the subject. For example:

Affirmative Statement	Question
It will have worked.	Will it have worked?
They will have worked.	Will they have worked?

Negative statements are formed by placing the word not after the first auxiliary. For example:

Affirmative Statement	Negative Statement
It will have worked.	It will not have worked.
They will have worked.	They will not have worked.

Negative questions are formed by placing the first auxiliary before the subject, and the word not after the subject. However, when contractions are used, the contracted form of not immediately follows the first auxiliary. For example:

Without Contractions	With Contractions
Will it not have worked?	Won't it have worked?
Will they not have worked?	Won't they have worked?

Tag questions are formed using the first auxiliary. In the following examples, the negative tag questions are underlined. Contractions are usually used in negative tag questions.

Affirmative Statement	Affirmative Statement with Tag Question
It will have worked.	It will have worked, won't it?
They will have worked.	They will have worked, won't they?