Breakdown of Alguém terá deixado a pegada na lama.
ter
to have
em
in / on / at
alguém
someone
deixar
to leave (behind) / to quit / to let (allow)
a lama
the mud
a pegada
the footprint
Questions & Answers about Alguém terá deixado a pegada na lama.
Why does the Portuguese sentence use a future tense (terá deixado) to talk about a footprint that was already left in the past?
This is the exact focus of your current lesson! In Portuguese, the Futuro Composto (future perfect) is frequently used to express an assumption, probability, or deduction about something that happened in the past. Even though it literally translates to "will have left", in this context it means "must have left" or "probably left".
Could I use the verb dever to express this same "must have" idea?
Do I need to include a word like provavelmente (probably) for the sentence to make sense as an assumption?
You don't need to! The compound future tense itself already builds the "probably" or "must have" meaning into the verb. Adding a word like provavelmente wouldn't be grammatically wrong, but it is entirely unnecessary because terá deixado carries that deductive meaning all on its own.
Since a pegada (the footprint) is a feminine noun, shouldn't the past participle agree with it and become deixada?
No. When forming active compound tenses with the auxiliary verb ter, the past participle always stays in its invariable masculine singular form (deixado). It only changes to agree with the noun if it is used in the passive voice, such as in the sentence A pegada foi deixada (The footprint was left).
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