Preterite
Encyclopedia
The preterite is the grammatical tense
expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past. In general, it is the perfective aspect
of the past tense
(not to be confused with the similarly named perfect aspect
) and may thus be more precisely called the perfective past
. But, in English, which does not have an inflection for perfective aspect, the term is used for the simple-past tense.
Typical conjugation:
Dūxī can be translated as (preterite) "I led," "I did lead" or (present perfect) "I have led."
A pronoun subject is often omitted, and usually used for emphasis.
, the preterite is known as le passé simple (the simple past). It is a past tense that indicates an action taken once in the past that was completed at some point in the past (translated: "verbed"). This is as opposed to the imperfect (l'imparfait), used in expressing repeated, continual, or habitual past actions (often corresponding to English's past continuous was/were <verb>ing). In the oral language, the compound tense known as le passé composé ("the compound past") began to compete with it from the 12th century AD onwards, and has since replaced it almost entirely. French simple past is mostly used in a narrative way to tell stories and describe successive actions. Novelists use it very commonly; it brings more suspense, as the sentence can be short without any time reference needed. In the oral language, the simple past is rarely used except with story telling. Therefore, it would be atypical to hear it in a standard discussion.
Typical conjugations:
, the preterite is known as perfectul simplu (literally, the simple past or simple perfect). The preterite indicates a past accomplished action (translated: "verbed"), however this tense is not frequent in the official language and not frequent in the standard speech (not used in Republic of Moldova and not used in the Romanian regions of Transylvania, Muntenia and Moldova). The general tendency is to use the compound past (perfectul compus) to express a past action that is perceived as completed at the moment of speaking. Simple past is still actively used in current speech in the southwestern part of Romania, especially in Oltenia
, but also in Banat
mostly in rural areas. Usage of the preterite is very frequent in written narrative discourse, the simple past of the speech verbs being generally after a dialogue line in narration:
When used in everyday speech in standard Romanian, the preterite indicates an action completed recently:
The second person is often used in questions about finishing an action in progress that is supposed to be over, giving the question a more informal tone:
The forms of the simple perfect are made of an unstressed stem of the infinitive
, a stressed suffix that is different in each group of verbs, and the endings -i, -şi, -Ø, -răm, -răţi, -ră, which are the same for all the verbs:
, the preterite is called passato remoto (literally "remote past"). It is a past tense that indicates an action taken once and completed far in the past (mangiai, "I ate"). This is opposed to the imperfetto tense, which refers to a repeated, continuous, or habitual past action (mangiavo, "I was eating" or "I used to eat") and to the passato prossimo (literally "close past"), which refers to an action completed recently (ho mangiato, "I have eaten").
In colloquial usage, the use of the passato remoto becomes more prevalent going from North to South of Italy. While Northern speakers tend to use passato prossimo in any perfective situation, Southern ones tend to use passato remoto even for recent events.
Typical conjugations:
* Many -ere verbs in Italian have stem alternations in the 1st person singular, 3rd person singular and 3rd person plural. Some verbs (with d/t in their stem, including credere) also have endings -etti (1st person singular), -ette (3rd person singular), and -ettero (3rd person plural).
, the preterite is the pretérito perfeito. The Portuguese preterite has the same form as the Spanish preterite, but the meaning is like the "composed past" of French and Italian in that it e.g. corri means both "I ran" and "I have run". As in other Romance Languages, it is opposed to the pretérito imperfeito (imperfect). Note that there does exist a pretérito perfeito composto (present perfect) but its meaning is not that of a perfect but instead it shows an iterative aspect. For example, tenho corrido does not mean "I have run" but instead means "I have run and I'm still running".
Typical conjugations:
1 Without the acute accent
in Brazilian Portuguese
.
, the preterite (pretérito) is a verb
tense
that indicates that an action taken once in the past was completed at a specific point in time in the past. Usually, a definite start time or end time for the action is stated. This is opposed to the imperfect, which refers to any repeated, continuous, or habitual past action. Thus, "I ran five miles yesterday" would use the first-person
preterite form of ran, corrí, whereas "I ran five miles every morning" would use the first-person imperfect form, corría. This distinction is actually one of perfective vs. imperfective aspect
.
The special conjugations for the "yo" form of the preterite are (the accent mark goes over the 'e'):
-gar verbs: -gue (jugar>jugué)
-car verbs: -que (buscar>busqué)
-zar verbs: -ce (almorzar>almorcé)
In most Spanish Mainland Spanish and, to a lesser extent, Mexican Spanish
, there is still a strong distinction between the preterite and the present perfect. As the preterite denotes an action that began and ended in the past, while the present perfect denotes an action that began in the past and is still going on, thus:
In most other variants of Spanish, such as in the Americas and in the Canary Islands, this distinction has tended to fade, with the preterite being used even for actions in the immediate pre-present with continuing relevance. Coincidentally, British Mainland English present perfect forms are sometimes replaced with simple pasts by Irish and North American English speakers , an exactly parallel development.
Typical conjugations:
, the term "preterite" is sometimes used for the past tense
.
's preterite — usually called its simple past
or just past tense — is generally formed by adding -ed or -t to the verb's plain form (bare infinitive), sometimes with some spelling modifications:
A number of English verbs form their preterites irregularly
, often by changing an interior vowel:
With the exception of "to be" and auxiliary
and modal verb
s, interrogative and negative clauses do not use their main verb's preterites; if their declarative
or positive counterpart does not use any auxiliary or modal verb, then the auxiliary verb did (the preterite of do) is inserted and the main verb appears in its plain form, as an infinitive
:
has a grammatical distinction between preterite (Präteritum) and perfect (Perfekt). (Older grammar books sometimes use Imperfekt instead of Präteritum, an unsuitable borrowing from Latin terminology.) Originally the distinction was as in English: The Präteritum was the standard, most neutral form for past actions, and could also express an event in the remote past, contrasting with the Perfekt, which expressed an event that has consequences reaching into the present.
In modern German, however, these tenses are used very differently. The Präteritum now has the meaning of a narrative
tense, i.e. a tense used primarily for describing connected past actions (e.g. as part of a story), and is used almost solely in formal writing. Use in speech is regarded as snobbish and thus very uncommon. However, this applies only to regularly formed preterite in cases an English simple past is appropriate; ich stand in the sense of "I was standing" remains common. Furthermore, in spoken Upper German
(in South Germany
, Austria
and Switzerland
), the Präteritum has vanished entirely except for the verb sein (to be) and wollen (to want), if not re-borrowed from Standard German (irregular forms only), but is still productive in producing the subjunctive. Yiddish
has gone even farther and has no preterite at all. Rather, there is only one past tense, which is formed using what was originally the perfect.
feature the preterite. It is used to describe past or present events, and contrasts with other, more temporally specific tenses.
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past. In general, it is the perfective aspect
Perfective aspect
The perfective aspect , sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed as a simple whole, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms...
of the past tense
Past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future...
(not to be confused with the similarly named perfect aspect
Perfect aspect
In linguistics, the perfect , occasionally called the retrospective to avoid confusion with the perfective aspect, is a combination of aspect and tense that calls a listener's attention to the consequences, at some time of perspective , generated by a prior situation, rather than just to the...
) and may thus be more precisely called the perfective past
Perfective past
In grammar, the perfective past is the perfective aspect of the past tense. In many languages, the perfective only occurs in the past tense; this past perfective form has traditionally been called the preterite in languages with a Latin grammatical tradition, such as the Romance languages, and the...
. But, in English, which does not have an inflection for perfective aspect, the term is used for the simple-past tense.
Latin
In Latin, the perfect tense most commonly functions as the preterite, and refers to an action completed in the past. If the past action were not completed, one would use the imperfect. The perfect in Latin also functions in other circumstances as a present perfect.Typical conjugation:
| Dūcō, Dūcere, Dūxī, Ductus | |
| ego | -ī (dūxī) |
| tū | -istī (dūxistī) |
| is, ea, id | -it (dūxit) |
| nōs | -imus (dūximus) |
| vōs | -istis (dūxistis) |
| eī | -ērunt (dūxērunt) |
Dūxī can be translated as (preterite) "I led," "I did lead" or (present perfect) "I have led."
A pronoun subject is often omitted, and usually used for emphasis.
French
In FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, the preterite is known as le passé simple (the simple past). It is a past tense that indicates an action taken once in the past that was completed at some point in the past (translated: "verbed"). This is as opposed to the imperfect (l'imparfait), used in expressing repeated, continual, or habitual past actions (often corresponding to English's past continuous was/were <verb>ing). In the oral language, the compound tense known as le passé composé ("the compound past") began to compete with it from the 12th century AD onwards, and has since replaced it almost entirely. French simple past is mostly used in a narrative way to tell stories and describe successive actions. Novelists use it very commonly; it brings more suspense, as the sentence can be short without any time reference needed. In the oral language, the simple past is rarely used except with story telling. Therefore, it would be atypical to hear it in a standard discussion.
Typical conjugations:
| -er verbs (aimer) | -ir verbs (finir) | -re verbs (rendre) | |
| je | -ai (aimai) | -is (finis) | -is (rendis) |
| tu | -as (aimas) | -is (finis) | -is (rendis) |
| il | -a (aima) | -it (finit) | -it (rendit) |
| nous | -âmes (aimâmes) | -îmes (finîmes) | -îmes (rendîmes) |
| vous | -âtes (aimâtes) | -îtes (finîtes) | -îtes (rendîtes) |
| ils | -èrent (aimèrent) | -irent (finirent) | -irent (rendirent) |
Romanian
In RomanianRomanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, the preterite is known as perfectul simplu (literally, the simple past or simple perfect). The preterite indicates a past accomplished action (translated: "verbed"), however this tense is not frequent in the official language and not frequent in the standard speech (not used in Republic of Moldova and not used in the Romanian regions of Transylvania, Muntenia and Moldova). The general tendency is to use the compound past (perfectul compus) to express a past action that is perceived as completed at the moment of speaking. Simple past is still actively used in current speech in the southwestern part of Romania, especially in Oltenia
Oltenia
Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....
, but also in Banat
Banat
The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...
mostly in rural areas. Usage of the preterite is very frequent in written narrative discourse, the simple past of the speech verbs being generally after a dialogue line in narration:
- Aici avem o crimă!, zise poliţistul. This is murder! said the policeman.
When used in everyday speech in standard Romanian, the preterite indicates an action completed recently:
- Tocmai îl auzii pe George la radio. I have just heard George on the radio.
The second person is often used in questions about finishing an action in progress that is supposed to be over, giving the question a more informal tone:
- Gata, citirăţi? Are you done, have you read [the texts]?
The forms of the simple perfect are made of an unstressed stem of the infinitive
Infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
, a stressed suffix that is different in each group of verbs, and the endings -i, -şi, -Ø, -răm, -răţi, -ră, which are the same for all the verbs:
| -a verbs (a intra) | -ea verbs (a tăcea) | -e verbs (a cere) | -e verbs (a merge) | -i verbs (a dormi) | -î verbs (a coborî) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| suffix a | suffix u | suffix u | suffix se | suffix i | suffix â/î | |
| eu | -ai (intrai) | -ui (tăcui) | -ui (cerui) | -sei (mersei) | -ii (dormii) | -âi (coborâi) |
| tu | -aşi (intraşi) | -uşi (tăcuşi) | -uşi (ceruşi) | -seşi (merseşi) | -işi (dormişi) | -âşi (coborâşi) |
| el/ea | -ă (intră) | -u (tăcu) | -u (ceru) | -se (merse) | -i (dormi) | -î coborî |
| noi | -arăm (intrarăm) | -urăm (tăcurăm) | -urăm (cerurăm) | -serăm (merserăm) | -irăm (dormirăm) | -ârăm (coborârăm) |
| voi | -arăţi (intrarăţi) | -urăţi (tăcurăţi) | -urăţi (cerurăţi) | -serăţi (merserăţi) | -irăţi (dormirăţi) | -ârăţi (coborârăţi) |
| ei/ele | -ară (intrară) | -ură (tăcură) | -ură (cerură) | -seră (merseră) | -iră (dormiră) | -âră (coborâră) |
Italian
In ItalianItalian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, the preterite is called passato remoto (literally "remote past"). It is a past tense that indicates an action taken once and completed far in the past (mangiai, "I ate"). This is opposed to the imperfetto tense, which refers to a repeated, continuous, or habitual past action (mangiavo, "I was eating" or "I used to eat") and to the passato prossimo (literally "close past"), which refers to an action completed recently (ho mangiato, "I have eaten").
In colloquial usage, the use of the passato remoto becomes more prevalent going from North to South of Italy. While Northern speakers tend to use passato prossimo in any perfective situation, Southern ones tend to use passato remoto even for recent events.
Typical conjugations:
| -are verbs (parlare) | [Regular] -ere verbs (credere)* | [Irregular] -ere verbs (prendere)* | -ire verbs (finire) | |
| io | -ai (parlai) | -ei (credei) | -i (presi) | -ii (finii) |
| tu | -asti (parlasti) | -esti (credesti) | -esti (prendesti) | -isti (finisti) |
| lui | -ò (parlò) | -é (credé) | -e (prese) | -ì (finì) |
| noi | -ammo (parlammo) | -emmo (credemmo) | -emmo (prendemmo) | -immo (finimmo) |
| voi | -aste (parlaste) | -este (credeste) | -este (prendeste) | -iste (finiste) |
| loro | -arono (parlarono) | -erono (crederono) | -ero (presero) | -irono (finirono) |
Portuguese
In PortuguesePortuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, the preterite is the pretérito perfeito. The Portuguese preterite has the same form as the Spanish preterite, but the meaning is like the "composed past" of French and Italian in that it e.g. corri means both "I ran" and "I have run". As in other Romance Languages, it is opposed to the pretérito imperfeito (imperfect). Note that there does exist a pretérito perfeito composto (present perfect) but its meaning is not that of a perfect but instead it shows an iterative aspect. For example, tenho corrido does not mean "I have run" but instead means "I have run and I'm still running".
Typical conjugations:
| -ar verbs (amar) | -er verbs (correr) | -ir verbs (partir) | |
| eu | -ei (amei) | -i (corri) | -i (parti) |
| tu | -aste (amaste) | -este (correste) | -iste (partiste) |
| ele | -ou (amou) | -eu (correu) | -iu (partiu) |
| nós | -ámos (amámos)1 | -emos (corremos) | -imos (partimos) |
| vós | -astes (amastes) | -estes (correstes) | -istes (partistes) |
| eles | -aram (amaram) | -eram (correram) | -iram (partiram) |
1 Without the acute accent
Acute accent
The acute accent is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts.-Apex:An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels.-Greek:...
in Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
.
Spanish
In SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, the preterite (pretérito) is a verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
that indicates that an action taken once in the past was completed at a specific point in time in the past. Usually, a definite start time or end time for the action is stated. This is opposed to the imperfect, which refers to any repeated, continuous, or habitual past action. Thus, "I ran five miles yesterday" would use the first-person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
preterite form of ran, corrí, whereas "I ran five miles every morning" would use the first-person imperfect form, corría. This distinction is actually one of perfective vs. imperfective aspect
Perfective aspect
The perfective aspect , sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed as a simple whole, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms...
.
The special conjugations for the "yo" form of the preterite are (the accent mark goes over the 'e'):
-gar verbs: -gue (jugar>jugué)
-car verbs: -que (buscar>busqué)
-zar verbs: -ce (almorzar>almorcé)
In most Spanish Mainland Spanish and, to a lesser extent, Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....
, there is still a strong distinction between the preterite and the present perfect. As the preterite denotes an action that began and ended in the past, while the present perfect denotes an action that began in the past and is still going on, thus:
- Comí todo el día. (I ate all day long.)
- He comido todo el día (I have been eating all day.)
In most other variants of Spanish, such as in the Americas and in the Canary Islands, this distinction has tended to fade, with the preterite being used even for actions in the immediate pre-present with continuing relevance. Coincidentally, British Mainland English present perfect forms are sometimes replaced with simple pasts by Irish and North American English speakers , an exactly parallel development.
Typical conjugations:
| -ar verbs (hablar) | -er verbs (comer) | -ir verbs (Vivir) | |
| yo | -é (hablé) | -í (comí) | -í (viví) |
| tú | -aste (hablaste) | -iste (comiste) | -iste (viviste) |
| él | -ó (habló) | -ió (comió) | -ió (vivió) |
| nosotros | -amos (hablamos) | -imos (comimos) | -imos (vivimos) |
| vosotros | -asteis (hablasteis) | -isteis (comisteis) | -isteis (vivisteis) |
| ellos | -aron (hablaron) | -ieron (comieron) | -ieron (vivieron) |
Preterite in Germanic languages
In Germanic languagesGermanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, the term "preterite" is sometimes used for the past tense
Past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future...
.
English
EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
's preterite — usually called its simple past
Simple Past
The simple past, sometimes called the preterite, is the past tense of Modern English. It is used to describe events in the past. It may combine with either or both of two aspects, the perfect and the progressive...
or just past tense — is generally formed by adding -ed or -t to the verb's plain form (bare infinitive), sometimes with some spelling modifications:
- He planted corn and oats.
- They studied grammar.
A number of English verbs form their preterites irregularly
Germanic strong verb
In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is one which marks its past tense by means of ablaut. In English, these are verbs like sing, sang, sung...
, often by changing an interior vowel:
- She went to the cinema. (Preterite of "go"; uses a completely different verb - the Anglo-Saxon 'wendan' from where we get 'to wend'.)
- I ate breakfast late this morning. (Preterite of "eat".)
- He ran to the store. (Preterite of "run".)
With the exception of "to be" and auxiliary
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
and modal verb
Modal verb
A modal verb is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality -- that is, likelihood, ability, permission, and obligation...
s, interrogative and negative clauses do not use their main verb's preterites; if their declarative
Declarative
Declarative may refer to:* Declarative learning, acquiring information that one can speak about* Declarative memory, one of two types of long term human memory* Declarative programming, a computer programming programming paradigm...
or positive counterpart does not use any auxiliary or modal verb, then the auxiliary verb did (the preterite of do) is inserted and the main verb appears in its plain form, as an infinitive
Infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
:
- Was she busy today?
- He was not there.
- Could she play the piano when she was ten?
- The editor had not read the book yet.
- Did he plant corn and oats?
- She did not go to the cinema.
German
GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
has a grammatical distinction between preterite (Präteritum) and perfect (Perfekt). (Older grammar books sometimes use Imperfekt instead of Präteritum, an unsuitable borrowing from Latin terminology.) Originally the distinction was as in English: The Präteritum was the standard, most neutral form for past actions, and could also express an event in the remote past, contrasting with the Perfekt, which expressed an event that has consequences reaching into the present.
- Präteritum: Es regnete. "It rained. / It was raining." (I am talking about a past event.)
- Perfekt: Es hat geregnet. "It has rained." (The street is still wet.)
In modern German, however, these tenses are used very differently. The Präteritum now has the meaning of a narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
tense, i.e. a tense used primarily for describing connected past actions (e.g. as part of a story), and is used almost solely in formal writing. Use in speech is regarded as snobbish and thus very uncommon. However, this applies only to regularly formed preterite in cases an English simple past is appropriate; ich stand in the sense of "I was standing" remains common. Furthermore, in spoken Upper German
Upper German
Upper German is a family of High German dialects spoken primarily in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Northern Italy.-Family tree:Upper German can be generally classified as Alemannic or Austro-Bavarian...
(in South Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
), the Präteritum has vanished entirely except for the verb sein (to be) and wollen (to want), if not re-borrowed from Standard German (irregular forms only), but is still productive in producing the subjunctive. Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
has gone even farther and has no preterite at all. Rather, there is only one past tense, which is formed using what was originally the perfect.
Preterites in Semitic languages
Semitic languages, including Hebrew and the Akkadian languageAkkadian language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
feature the preterite. It is used to describe past or present events, and contrasts with other, more temporally specific tenses.
See also
- AoristAoristAorist is a philological term originally from Indo-European studies, referring to verb forms of various languages that are not necessarily related or similar in meaning...
- Grammatical tenseGrammatical tenseA tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
- Grammatical aspectGrammatical aspectIn linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
- Wiktionary list of English irregular verbs