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Hey, I've got a question for ya. None of my grammar books actually define the future perfect tense.
 
Past perfect: By the time something happened (past), something else had already happened.
 
Future perfect: By the time something happens (future), something else will have already happened. 
 
(1) By the time I arrive at the office, they will have left for the barbecue.
(2) By the time I arrive at the office, they will have gone to the barbecue.


Although both sound perfectly correct, number (2), with the past participle, must be correct. Please confirm.
 
Both are past participles but the first uses the wrong verb. See (50) a. below.
 

The Teacher's Grammar of English
 
by Ron Cowan, c.2008, Cambridge University Press.
 
Past Perfect (page 369)
 
The past perfect tense is formed with the past tense form of the verb have (i.e., had) and the past participle.
 
Basic Meaning
 
The past perfect expresses a past action completed prior to another event or time in the past. Hence the past perfect often occurs in sentences with a main clause and a subordinate clause, where (in which) both clauses express the events in the past, as shown in (49).
 
(49) a. She gave the book to his brother after she had read it.   Wrong
       b. She had already mailed the letter when Hal called her.   Right 
 
The presence of the past perfect insures that the event it describes is interpreted as having occurred before the event in the other clause. Thus, the order in which the clauses appear does not affect the interpretation of which action occurred first. This can be seen by comparing (50a) with (50b) and (50c) with (50d).
 
(50) a. When she arrived, he had already left (he had already gone but he left the tickets with the bartender).
      b. He had already <left> gone when she arrived.
      c. By the time she arrived, he had already <left> gone.
      d. He had already <left> gone by the time she arrived.
 
.brad.24may10.


      

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