This tense prefixes the auxiliaries, might have, could have, would have, or should have, to the perfect participle:  thus,

Singular.               Plural.
1.  I might have loved,         1.  We might have loved,
2.  Thou mightst have loved,    2.  You might have loved,
3.  He might have loved;        3.  They might have loved.

SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD.

The subjunctive mood is that form of the verb, which represents the being, action, or passion, as conditional, doubtful, or contingent.  This mood is generally preceded by a conjunction; as, if, that, though, lest, unless, except.  But sometimes, especially in poetry, it is formed by a mere placing of the verb before the nominative; as, “Were I,” for, “If I were;”—­“Had he,” for, “If he had;”—­“Fall we” for, “If we fall;”—­“Knew they,” for, “If they knew.”  It does not vary its termination at all, in the different persons.[261] It is used in the present, and sometimes in the imperfect tense; rarely—­and perhaps never properly—­in any other.  As this mood can be used only in a dependent clause, the time implied in its tenses is always relative, and generally indefinite; as,

   “It shall be in eternal restless change,
    Self-fed, and self-consum’d:  if this fail,
    The pillar’d firmament is rottenness.”—­Milton, Comus, l. 596.

PRESENT TENSE.

This tense is generally used to express some condition on which a future action or event is affirmed.  It is therefore erroneously considered by some grammarians, as an elliptical form of the future.

Singular. Plural. 1.  If I love, 1.  If we love, 2.  If Thou love, 2.  If you love, 3.  If He love; 3.  If they love.

OBS.—­In this tense, the auxiliary do is sometimes employed; as, “If thou do prosper my way.”—­Genesis, xxiv, 42.  “If he do not utter it.”—­Leviticus, v, 1.  “If he do but intimate his desire.”—­Murray’s Key, p. 207.  “If he do promise, he will certainly perform.”—­Ib., p. 208.  “An event which, if it ever do occur, must occur in some future period.”—­Hiley’s Gram., (3d Ed., Lond.,) p. 89.  “If he do but promise, thou art safe.”—­Ib., 89.

   “Till old experience do attain
    To something like prophetic strain.”—­MILTON:  Il Penseroso.

These examples, if they are right, prove the tense to be present, and not future, as Hiley and some others suppose it to be.

IMPERFECT TENSE.