Past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs sang, went and washed. Most languages have a past tense, with some having several types in order to indicate how far back the action took place. Some languages have a compound past tense which uses auxiliary verbs as well as an imperfect tense which expresses continuous or repetitive events or actions. Some languages inflect the verb, which changes the ending to indicate the past tense, while non-inflected languages may use other words meaning, for example, "yesterday" or "last week" to indicate that something took place in the past.
Introduction
In some languages, the grammatical expression of past tense is combined with the expression of other categories such as grammatical aspect. Thus a language may have several types of past tense form, their use depending on what aspectual or other additional information is to be encoded. French, for example, has a compound past for expressing completed events, and imperfect for continuous or repetitive events.Some languages that grammaticalise for past tense do so by inflecting the verb, while others do so periphrastically using auxiliary verbs, also known as "verbal operators". Not all languages grammaticalise verbs for past tense – Mandarin Chinese, for example, mainly uses lexical means to indicate that something took place in the past, although use can also be made of the tense/aspect markers le and guo.
The "past time" to which the past tense refers generally means the past relative to the moment of speaking, although in contexts where relative tense is employed it may mean the past relative to some other time being under discussion. A language's past tense may also have other uses besides referring to past time; for example, in English and certain other languages, the past tense is sometimes used in referring to hypothetical situations, such as in condition clauses like If you loved me..., where the past tense loved is used even though there may be no connection with past time.
Some languages grammatically distinguish the recent past from remote past with separate tenses. There may be more than two distinctions.
In some languages, certain past tenses can carry an implication that the result of the action in question no longer holds. For example, in the Bantu language Chichewa, use of the remote past tense ánáamwalíra "he died" would be surprising since it would imply that the person was no longer dead. This kind of past tense is known as discontinuous past. Similarly certain imperfective past tenses can carry an implication that the action referred to no longer takes place.
A general past tense can be indicated with the glossing abbreviation.
Indo-European languages
The European continent is heavily dominated by Indo-European languages, all of which have a past tense. In some cases the tense is formed inflectionally as in English see/saw or walks/walked and as in the French imperfect form, and sometimes it is formed periphrastically, as in the French passé composé form. Further, all of the non-Indo-European languages in Europe, such as Basque, Hungarian, and Finnish, also have a past tense.Germanic languages
English
In English, the past tense is one of the inflected forms of a verb. The past tense of regular verbs is made by adding -d or -ed to the base form of the verb, while those of irregular verbs are formed in various ways. With regular and some irregular verbs, the past tense form also serves as a past participle. For full details of past tense formation, see English verbs.Past events are often referred to using the present perfect construction, as in I have finished. However this is not regarded as an instance of the past tense; instead it is viewed as a combination of present tense with perfect aspect, specifying a present state that results from past action.
Various multi-word constructions exist for combining past tense with progressive aspect, which denotes ongoing action; with perfect aspect; and with progressive and perfect aspects together. These and other common past tense constructions are listed below:
- The simple past consists of just the past tense form of the verb, although when it is negated, emphasized or inverted it is sometimes necessary to unfuse the verb, using a periphrastic construction with did – see do-support. The simple past is used for describing single occurrences or habitual occurrences in the past, and sometimes for states existing in the past with no connection to the present, and sometimes for states and sensual perceptions existing in the past. It also describes short, one-time past actions that interrupt another action in the past. Additionally, it signals habitual or repeated actions in the past. It expresses an event that is understood to have happened before another past event without using the past perfect tense. In reported speech, it replaces the Present Simple. Finally, it is used to describe an unreal or unlikely event in the present.
- The past progressive is formed using the simple past of be with present participle of the main verb: He was going. This form indicates that an action was ongoing at the past time under consideration, often interrupted by another past action. It describes an event that lasted for a certain period, emphasizing its duration and often implying it was unfinished. It is used for two actions happening at the same time in the past. It also describes a temporary situation. In reported speech, it replaces the present progressive, especially when referring to a near-future or long-lasting action.
- The past perfect combines had with the past participle of the main verb: We had shouted. This denotes that an action occurred before a specified time in the past, and therefore has similar function to the pluperfect found in some languages. It appears with prepositions such as after, when, and as soon as ''. It follows the phrase it was the first time. It expresses unfulfilled wishes and hopes. It describes an unreal past event that was a condition for another unfulfilled event. In reported speech, it replaces the Past Simple and Present Perfect.
- The past perfect progressive combines had with been and the present participle of the main verb: You had been waiting. It is used to refer to an ongoing action that continued up to the past time of reference. It indicates how long an event had lasted before a specific past moment. It emphasizes the continuity of an event rather than its completion. It describes relatively short-lived situations. In reported speech, it replaces the past progressive and present perfect progressive.
- The expression used to denotes a past habitual situation, although with a stative verb it can just indicate that a state was continuously in effect. It is often used to emphasize that something happened a long time ago and is no longer the case. Another way of referring to past habitual action is to use would, as in As a child I would play the piano every day, although this auxiliary has other uses as well. For further details see English modal verbs.
German
uses three forms for the past tense.- The preterite
- The perfect
- The past perfect
In southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the preterite is mostly used solely in writing, for example in stories. Use in speech is regarded as snobbish and thus very uncommon. South German dialects, such as the Bavarian dialect, as well as Yiddish and Swiss German, have no preterite, but only perfect constructs.
In certain regions, a few specific verbs are used in the preterite, for instance the modal verbs and the verbs haben and sein.
- Es gab einmal ein kleines Mädchen, das Rotkäppchen hieß.
In speech and informal writing, the Perfekt is used.
However, in the oral mode of North Germany, there is still a very important difference between the preterite and the perfect, and both tenses are consequently very common. The preterite is used for past actions when the focus is on the action, whilst the present perfect is used for past actions when the focus is on the present state of the subject as a result of a previous action. This is somewhat similar to the English usage of the preterite and the present perfect.
- Preterite: "Heute früh kam mein Freund."
- Perfect: "Heute früh ist mein Freund gekommen."
Dutch
mainly uses these two past tenses:- onvoltooid verleden tijd, which matches the English simple past and the German preterite, for example: Gisteren was ik daar.
- voltooid tegenwoordige tijd, a present tense with the meaning of perfect. This form is made by combining a form of zijn or hebben with the notional verb, for example: Gisteren ben ik daar geweest. This also means "I was there yesterday", but just as it is the case for English constructions with the present perfect simple, this kind of formulation puts more emphasis on the "being finished"-aspect.