Breakdown of Suspectul trebuie să fi târât cadavrul în pădure.
fi
to be (sunt, ești, este, suntem, sunteți, sunt)
în
in
să
to (subjunctive marker)
trebui
to have to / to be needed (with a dative: to need)
pădurea
the forest
suspectul
the suspect
târî
to drag
cadavrul
the corpse
Questions & Answers about Suspectul trebuie să fi târât cadavrul în pădure.
How do we form the "must have done" structure in trebuie să fi târât?
To express a logical deduction about the past (meaning "must have [done something]"), we use the invariable verb trebuie followed by the Past Subjunctive. The Past Subjunctive is formed with the conjunction să, the auxiliary fi (which never changes), and the past participle of the main verb (târât).
Wait, doesn't trebuie need to agree with suspectul?
No, when trebuie is used with a subjunctive verb (să...) to mean "must" or "have to", it acts as an impersonal verb and always stays in the 3rd-person singular form. The actual subject (suspectul) performs the action of the second verb (a târî), not trebuie.
Why is it în pădure without a definite article, if the English translation says "into the forest"?
In Romanian, nouns that immediately follow simple prepositions like în, pe, or din generally drop the definite article, even if we translate them with "the" in English. You would only add the definite article if the noun were modified by an adjective or a phrase, such as in în pădurea întunecată (into the dark forest).
What verb does târât come from?
It is the past participle of a târî (to drag, to trail, or to crawl). It is a 4th conjugation verb ending in -î, which is why its past participle ends in -ât.
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