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The imperfect (
abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and
imperfective aspect The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a gen ...
(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. Traditionally, the imperfect of languages such as Latin and French is referred to as one of the tenses, although it actually encodes aspectual information in addition to tense (time reference). It may be more precisely called ''past imperfective''. English has no general imperfective and expresses it in different ways. The term "imperfect" in English refers to forms much more commonly called ''
past progressive This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes: * Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went'' * Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone'' * Combinations of ...
'' or ''past continuous'' (e.g. "was doing" or "were doing"). These are combinations of past tense with specifically continuous or progressive aspect. In German, formerly referred to the simply conjugated past tense (to contrast with the or compound past form), but the term (preterite) is now preferred, since the form does not carry any implication of imperfective aspect. "Imperfect" comes from the Latin "unfinished", because the imperfect expresses an ongoing, uncompleted action. The equivalent Ancient Greek term was "prolonged".


Indo-European languages


English

Imperfect meanings in
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
are expressed in different ways depending on whether the event is continuous or habitual. For a
continuous Continuity or continuous may refer to: Mathematics * Continuity (mathematics), the opposing concept to discreteness; common examples include ** Continuous probability distribution or random variable in probability and statistics ** Continuous g ...
action (one that was in progress at a particular time in the past), the
past progressive This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes: * Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went'' * Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone'' * Combinations of ...
(past continuous) form is used, as in "I ''was eating''"; "They ''were running'' fast." However certain verbs that express state rather than action do not mark the progressive aspect (see ); in these cases the simple past tense is used instead: "He ''was'' hungry"; "We ''knew'' what to do next." Habitual (repeated) action in the past can be marked by '' used to'', as in "I ''used to eat'' a lot", or by the auxiliary verb ''would'', as in "Back then, I ''would eat'' early and ''would walk'' to school." (The auxiliary ''would'' also has other uses, such as expressing
conditional mood The conditional mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood used in conditional sentences to express a proposition whose validity is dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual. It may refer to a distinct verb form that expresses the condit ...
.) However, in many cases the habitual nature of the action does not need to be explicitly marked on the verb, and the simple past is used: "We always ''ate'' dinner at six o'clock."


Italic languages


Latin

Conjugation of the imperfect indicative: Notes: * The imperfect is signified by the signs ''ba'' and ''ebā''. * The imperfect forms of ''esse'' are used as auxiliary verbs in the pluperfect of the passive voice along with perfect passive participles.


Romance languages

In Romance languages, the imperfect is generally a past tense. Its uses include representing: * Repetition and continuity: an action that was happening, used to happen, or happened regularly in the past, as it was ongoing * A description of people, things, or conditions of the past * A time in the past * A relation between past happenings: a situation that was in progress in the past or a condition originated in a previous time, when another isolated and important event occurred (the first verb, indicating the status in progress or condition from the past using the imperfect, while the latter uses the preterite). * A physical or mental state or condition in progress in the past. Often used with verbs of being, emotion, capability, or conscience. A common mistake of beginners learning a Romance language is putting too much emphasis on whether the time the action occurred is known. This generally does ''not'' affect how the imperfect is used. For example, the sentence "''Someone ate all of my cookies.''" (when translated) is not a good candidate for the imperfect. Fundamentally, it is no different from the sentence "''We ate all the cookies.''" Note this fails the ''repeatability'' requirement of the imperfect, as it is only known to have happened once. On the other hand, the sentence "''I used to have fun in the 1960s.''" is a good candidate for the imperfect, even though its period is known. In short, knowing ''when'' an action occurred is not nearly as important as ''how long'' it occurred (or was and still is occurring).


French

To form the imperfect for
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
regular verbs, take the first person plural present tense, the "nous" (we) form, subtract the ''-ons'' suffix, and add the appropriate ending (the forms for ''être'' (to be), whose "nous" form does not end in ''-ons'', are irregular; they start with ''ét-'' but have the same endings). Verbs that terminate in a stem of -cer and -ger undergo minor orthographic changes to preserve the phonetic sound or allophone. Verbs whose root terminates in the letter "i" maintain the letter despite the consecutiveness in the "nous" and "vous" forms. It is used to express the ideas of habitual actions or states of being; physical and emotional descriptions: time, weather, age, feelings; actions or states of an unspecified duration; background information in conjunction with the passé composé; wishes or suggestions; conditions in "si" clauses; the expressions "être en train de" and "venir de" in the past.


Italian

Conjugation of the imperfect indicative: Notes: * Dropping the -re suffix and adding -vo, -vi, -va, -vamo, -vate, and -vano form verbs. *Although ''dire'' and ''opporre'' (as all the composite forms of verb ''porre'' and ''dire'') may seem irregular, they are a part of a verb family that has stronger roots to Latin equivalents (lat. ''pōnere/pōnēbam'' and ''dīcere/dīcēbam''). Other verbs include ''fare''(infinitive)/''faccio''(present tense)/''facevo''(imperfect) (lat.''facere/facio/faciēbam''), ''bere/bevo/bevevo'' (''bibere/bibo/bibēbam''), ''trarre/traggo/traevo'' (''trahere/traho/trahēbam''), ''durre/duco/ducevo''
bs. BS, B.S., Bs or bs may refer to: Arts and entertainment *BS-, a prefix for all games broadcast for the Satellaview modem via the Japanese Broadcasting Satellite system * "B.S." (song), a song by Jhené Aiko from the album ''Chilombo'' * Team BS ...
(''dūcere/dūco/dūcēbam'') and all their composite forms.. * There is another imperfect in Italian formed by combining the imperfect of the verb ''stare'' (stavo, stavi, stava, stavamo, stavate, stavano) with the gerund. For example, "parlavo" could be said as "stavo parlando". The difference is similar to the difference between "I eat" and "I am eating" in English. However, English does not make this distinction in the imperfect.


Romanian

Conjugation of the imperfect indicative: Notes: * The imperfect is formed from the short infinitive form of the verbs (without the -re suffix) combined with the -am, -ai, -a, -am, -ați, and -au endings. * Short infinitives ending in „-a” (1st conjugation) don't double this letter: e.g. "pleca” in the first person singular is "plecam" and not "plecaam"). * Short infinitives ending in "-i" take the pattern of those ending in "-e" (e.g. ''dormi'' becomes ''dormeam'' in 1st person imperfect), while short infinitives ending in "-î" take the pattern of those ending in "-a" (e.g. ''hotărî'' becomes ''hotăram'' in 1st person imperfect). * There is only one irregular verb in the imperfect: ''a fi'', that is created from the radical ''era-'', instead of ''fi-''.


Spanish

In Spanish, the imperfect can be called the ''imperfecto'' or the ''copretérito''. Conjugation of the imperfect indicative: * There are only three irregular verbs in the imperfect: ''ir'', ''ser'', and ''ver''. Historically, ''ir'' — unlike other Spanish "''-ir'' verbs" — failed to drop the ''-b-'' of the Latin imperfect. The imperfect of ''ser'' is likewise a continuation of the Latin imperfect (of ''esse''), with the same stem appearing in ''tú eres'' (thanks to pre-classical Latin
rhotacism Rhotacism () or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language ...
). The imperfect of ''ver'' (''veía'' etc.) was historically considered regular in Old Spanish, where the infinitive ''veer'' provided the stem ''ve-'', but that is no longer the case in
standard Spanish Standard Spanish, also called the es, label=none, norma culta, lit=cultivated norm, refers to the standard, or codified, variety of the Spanish language, which most writing and formal speech in Spanish tends to reflect. This standard, like oth ...
. In formal language, pronouns "tú" and "vosotros" are replaced by "usted" and "ustedes" (sometimes abbreviated as Ud./Vd. and Uds./Vds.), with the verb conjugated in third person. American Spanish always replaces "vosotros" with "ustedes", switching the verb accordingly. The countries that show the kind of
voseo In Spanish grammar, () is the use of as a second-person singular pronoun, along with its associated verbal forms, in certain regions where the language is spoken. In those regions it replaces , i.e. the use of the pronoun and its verbal for ...
in which "tú" is replaced by "vos" use the same forms as for "tú" in this tense. * The first person singular and third person singular forms are the same for all verbs; thus, in cases of ambiguity where context is insufficient, a pronoun or subject noun is included for the sake of clarification.


Portuguese

In Portuguese, the imperfect indicative, called "pretérito imperfeito", is quite similar to Spanish: There are four irregular verbs: "pôr" (to put), "ser" (to be), "ter" (to have) and "vir" (to come). Unlike in Spanish, the verbs "ver" (to see) and "ir" (to go) are ''regular'' in the Portuguese imperfect. Like in Italian, it is also commonly formed by combining the imperfect of the verb estar (estava, estavas, estava, estávamos, estáveis, estavam) with the gerund (for example, "falando", the gerund form of "falar", to speak, to talk). In Brazilian Portuguese, both in informal oral speech and informal written language (for example, online or phone texting), it is more common to use the composite "estava falando" (commonly reduced to "tava falando"), than to use the synthetic "falava", which is more common in formal written forms. Both in European and Brazilian Portuguese, the synthetic
pluperfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...
("eu falara" "I had spoken") is considered old-fashioned and never used in spoken communication – it is substituted by the composite "eu tinha falado", which is formed with the imperfect form of the verb "ter" (to have) (tinha tinhas tinha tínhamos tínheis tinham) plus the past participle ("falado"). Alternatively, the verb "ter" can be swapped with the imperfect form of the verb "haver" (to have) (havia havias havia haviamos havíeis haviam)


Galician

Similar to the closely related Portuguese, as well as to Spanish, but often called "copretérito" (from ''co-'', same particle found in English "collaboration" and "coexistence", plus "pretérito", which is "past tense", in reference of it being a second past tense that exists along the regular one). Same as with them, in formal usage "ti" and "vós/vosoutros" change to "vostede" and "vostedes" and are followed by the third person. In verbs ended in ''-aer'', ''-oer'', ''-aír'' and ''-oír'', the first and second person of the plural show the presence of a diaeresis.


Indo-Aryan languages


Hindi

Hindi, an
Indo-Aryan language The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...
, has indicative imperfect tense conjugation only for the verb होना (''honā'')
o be O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), plu ...
and the rest of the verbs lack this conjugation. The indicative imperfect forms of होना ''(honā)'' comes from Sanskrit स्थित ''(stʰita)'' "standing, situated" which are derived from the PIE root ''*steh₂-'' (“to stand”). The imperfect conjugation is derived from a participle form and hence its conjugations agree only with the number and gender of the grammatical person and not the pronoun itself. So, the grammatically singular pronouns (e.g., मैं ''ma͠i'' "I" and तू ''tū "you"'' etc.) are assigned the singular imperfect forms (i.e. था ''thā'' or थी ''thī'') depending on the gender of the person or the noun they refer to, and the grammatically plural pronouns (e.g. हम ''ham'' "we" etc.) are assigned the plural imperfect forms (थे ''thē'' and थीं ''thīm̊''). An exception to this is the pronoun तुम (''tum'') which takes in the plural imperfect form (थे ''thē)'' in masculine gender but singular form (थी ''thī'') in feminine gender. These imperfect conjugations also act as copula to form the imperfect past forms for the three
grammatical aspect In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to ...
s that Hindi hasː Habitual,
Perfective The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the im ...
, and
Progressive Progressive may refer to: Politics * Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform ** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context * Progressive realism, an American foreign policy pa ...
aspects.


Assamese

In Assamese, two imperfect forms are recognisedː present progressive and/or present perfect & past progressive and/or remote past. There is only one periphrastic tense which functions as both the present progressive and present perfect with reference to the setting in which is placed.


Indo-Iranian languages


Persian

Like all other past tenses, imperfect is conjugated regularly for all verbs. Formation: '' reverb+ mi- + past stem + past ending.'' Conjugation of the imperfect indicative for the first person singular is shown in the table belowː


Slavic languages

Most Slavic languages have lost the imperfect but it is preserved in Bulgarian and Macedonian. It is also officially retained in Serbian and Croatian but is considered old-fashioned and restricted to literature for poetic and stylistic reasons.


Turkish

Turkish has separate tenses for past continuous and imperfect. To form the past continuous tense for Turkish verbs, after removing the infinitive suffix (-mek or -mak), take the present continuous tense suffix "-yor" without personal suffixes, and add the ending for the simple past plus the appropriate personal suffix * As ''-du'' (which has a rounded back vowel) succeeds ''-lar'' (which has an unrounded back vowel), instead of ''-yor'' (which has a rounded back vowel) when the subject is the third person plural ''onlar'', it becomes ''-dı'' (which has an unrounded back vowel). * If a verb ends in ''t'', it may change into ''d'' (especially ''gitmek'' and ''etmek''). * If a verb ends in open vowels (''a'' or ''e''), the open vowels become closed while adding ''-yor'' (because of the closed auxiliary vowel ''-i-''). *: ''a'' becomes ''ı'' if the preceding vowel is unrounded, ''u'' if it is rounded (ağla -> ağlıyor, topla -> topluyor) *: ''e'' becomes ''i'' if the preceding vowel is unrounded, ''ü'' if it is rounded (bekle -> bekliyor, söyle -> söylüyor) * If the verb ends in a consonant, the auxiliary vowel ''-i-'' must be added before ''-yor''. It becomes ''-ı-'', ''-u-'' or ''-ü-'' depending on the frontness and roundedness of the preceding vowel, because of the vowel harmony: *: ''-i'' if the preceding vowel is ''e'' or ''i'' (front unrounded): gel -> geliyor *: ''-ı'' if the preceding vowel is ''a'' or ''ı'' (back unrounded): bak -> bakıyor *: ''-u'' if the preceding vowel is ''o'' or ''u'' (back rounded): kork -> korkuyor *: ''-ü'' if the preceding vowel is ''ö'' or ''ü'' (front rounded): gör -> görüyor * ''r'' of ''-yor'' may be dropped in colloquial speech. To form the negative of the past continuous tense, the negation suffix "-ma/-me", which becomes ''-mi'', ''-mı'', ''-mu'', or ''-mü'' because of the closed auxiliary vowel and the vowel harmony, must be added before ''-yor''. Examples: * The epenthetic consonant ''y'' is inserted between ''-mu'' and ''-du''. * As ''-mu'' and ''-du'' (which have a rounded back vowel) succeeds ''-lar'' (which has an unrounded back vowel) instead of ''-yor'' (which has a rounded back vowel) when the subject is the third person plural, ''onlar'', they become ''-mı'' and ''-dı'' (which have an unrounded back vowel).


Semitic languages

Semitic languages, especially the ancient forms, do not make use of the imperfect (or perfect) tense with verbs. Instead, they use the
imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ge ...
and
perfective The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the im ...
aspects, respectively. Aspects are similar to tenses, but differ by requiring contextual comprehension to know whether the verb indicates a completed or non-completed action.


Dravidian languages


Malayalam

In
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...
(verbs are never conjugated for
grammatical person In linguistics, grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event; typically the distinction is between the speaker ( first person), the addressee ( second person), and others (third pers ...
, which is indicated by a pronoun), there are two indicative imperfects, corresponding exactly with English: :1 -ഉകയായിരുന്നു (ukayāyirunnu) endings (''... was...''), for example: ::ഓടുകയായിരുന്നു (ōṭukayāyirunnu) ''... was running'' : :2 -ഉമായിരുന്നു (umāyirunnu) endings (''... used to ...''), for example: ::ഓടുമായിരുന്നു (ōṭumāyirunnu) ''... used to run'' : *To form the "was doing" imperfect, take the infinitive ending in ഉക (uka), for example ഓടുക (ōṭuka) – to run – and add the ending – യായിരുന്നു (yāyirunnu). : *To form the "used to do" imperfect, take off the ക (ka) from the end of the "uka" form and add മായിരുന്നു (māyirunnu) in its stead. To make a verb in the imperfect negative, add അല്ല് (all) after the ഉകയ (ukaya) part of the ending for the "was doing" imperfect. For example, ഓടുകയല്ലായിരുന്നു (ōṭukayallāyirunnu) (''...was not running''). To do the same for the "used to do" imperfect, take off the ഉമ (uma) from the ending and add അത്തില്ല (attilla) instead. For example, ഓടത്തില്ലായിരുന്നു (ōṭattillāyirunnu) (''...didn't use to run'')


References

{{Authority control Grammatical tenses