A hesternal tense (
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
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 hav ...
for the previous day. (''Hesterno die'' is
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for 'yesterday'.)
Hesternal tense refers to an event which occurred yesterday (in an absolute tense system) or on the preceding day (in a
relative tense Relative tense and absolute tense are distinct possible uses of the grammatical category of tense. Absolute tense means the grammatical expression of time reference (usually past, present or future) relative to "now" – the moment of speaking. I ...
system). A pre-hesternal tense refers to an event which occurred prior to yesterday or the previous day. Hesternal tense is reported, for example in the
Fyam or Fyem language of northern Nigeria.
Hesternal tense may also be used to denote a tense for any time prior to the current day – that is, to mean pre-
hodiernal.
[Earl W. Stevick, ''Adapting and writing language lessons'', U.S. Foreign Service Institute, 1971, p. 302.]
References
Grammatical tenses
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