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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.
Georgian and Bulgarian, for example, have parallel perfective-imperfective and aorist-imperfect forms, the latter restricted to the past tense. In Bulgarian, there are parallel perfective and imperfective stems; aorist and imperfect suffixes are typically added to the perfective and imperfective stems, respectively, but the opposite can occur.
This is followed by the simple past tense , and then the past participle. If there are irregular present tense forms (see below), these are given in parentheses after the infinitive. (The present participle and gerund forms of verbs, ending in -ing, are always regular. In English, these are used as verbs, adjectives, and nouns.)
Sometimes, English has a lexical distinction where other languages may use the distinction in grammatical aspect. For example, the English verbs "to know" (the state of knowing) and "to find out" (knowing viewed as a "completed action") correspond to the imperfect and perfect forms of the equivalent verbs in French and Spanish, savoir and saber ...
Quebec French and Louisiana French [15] often express a continuous sense using the periphrastic construction être après (lit. "to be after") followed by a simple infinitive; for example, English's "we were eating" might be expressed either as simply nous mangions with the imperfect (imparfait) like in France, or as nous étions après manger ...
A tense for after tomorrow is thus called post-crastinal, and one for before yesterday is called pre-hesternal. [citation needed] Another tense found in some languages, including Luganda, is the persistive tense, used to indicate that a state or ongoing action is still the case (or, in the negative, is no longer the case). Luganda also has ...
For example: "Ja sam bio učio" (or: "Ja bijah učio"), which means, "I had been studying". In Bulgarian, the pluperfect (минало предварително време) is formed with the imperfect tense of the auxiliary verb съм (to be) and the perfect active participle of the main verb.
For example, bore and found may be past tenses of bear and find, but may also represent independent (regular) verbs of different meaning. Another example is lay, which may be the past tense of lie, but is also an independent verb (regular in pronunciation, but with irregular spelling: lay–laid–laid).