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The preterite or preterit (/ ˈ p r ɛ t ər ɪ t / PRET-ər-it; abbreviated PRET or PRT) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple past tense.
The imperfect (abbreviated IMPERF) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to walk". It contrasts with preterite forms, which refer to a single completed event in the past.
The preterite (Präteritum) (called the "imperfect" in older grammar books, but this, a borrowing from Latin terminology, ill describes it.) The perfect (Perfekt) The past perfect (Plusquamperfekt) In southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the preterite is mostly used solely in writing, for example in stories. Use in speech is regarded as ...
The six main indicative tenses in classical Latin are the following, using the verb dūcō as an example: [7] (a) Infectum tenses Present: dūcō 'I lead, I am leading' Future: dūcam 'I will lead, I will be leading' Imperfect: dūcēbam 'I was leading, I used to lead' (b) Perfectum tenses Perfect: dūxī 'I led, I have led'
The preterite and past participle forms of irregular verbs follow certain patterns. These include ending in -t (e.g. build , bend , send ), stem changes (whether it is a vowel, such as in sit , win or hold , or a consonant, such as in teach and seek , that changes), or adding the [ n ] suffix to the past participle form (e.g. drive , show , rise ).
It semantically corresponds to the distinction between the morphological forms known respectively as the aorist and imperfect in Greek, the preterite and imperfect in Spanish, the simple past (passé simple) and imperfect in French, and the perfect and imperfect in Latin (from the Latin perfectus, meaning "completed").
The English language has many irregular verbs, approaching 200 in normal use – and significantly more if prefixed forms are counted. In most cases, the irregularity concerns the past tense (also called preterite) or the past participle.
Both aorist and imperfect verbs can represent a past event: through contrast, the imperfect verb often implies a longer duration (e.g. 'they urged him' vs. 'they persuaded him'). The aorist participle represents the first event of a two-event sequence and the present participle represents an ongoing event at the time of another event. [25]