Abstract
This article focuses on the designations of verbal tenses in the first normative grammars of Spanish (late fifteenth century-mid seventeenth century) and their relations with Latin as regards terminological choices. It is shown that while some authors, such as Nebrija in 1492, tended to romanise modal-temporal labels in order to make them accessible to as many people as possible, in the seventeenth century a reverse movement of terminological relatinisation took place, going against the conceptual delatinisation that characterised grammatical thought at the time. One of the main reasons for these new practices has to be sought in the desire to place innovations within a vast network of Latinised terminology, born from the transfer of the epistemological advances of the previous century and guaranteeing the scientific nature of grammatical knowledge liberated from sensory experience and everyday language.