preterite

past tense

The past tense is used to describe or indicate an action that began in the past. Depending on how we form the past tense, it might describe actions that happened or were completed in the past, were occurring at the same time as something else in the past, or continued to happen until or near the present time.

There are four forms of the Past Tense that can accomplish these tasks.

pret·er·ite

or pret·er·it (prĕt′ər-ĭt)

adj.

Of, relating to, or being the verb tense that describes a past action or state.

1. The verb form expressing or describing a past action or condition.

2. A verb in the preterite form.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin (tempus) praeteritum, past (tense), neuter past participle of praeterīre, to go by : praeter, beyond, comparative of prae, before; see per in Indo-European roots + īre, to go; see ei- in Indo-European roots.]

preterite

(ˈprɛtərɪt) grammar or

preterit

1. (Grammar) a tense of verbs used to relate past action, formed in English by inflection of the verb, as jumped, swam

2. (Grammar) a verb in this tense

adj

(Grammar) denoting this tense

[C14: from Late Latin praeteritum (tempus) past (time, tense), from Latin praeterīre to go by, from preter- + īre to go]

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Noun

preterite - a term formerly used to refer to the simple past tense

preterit

past tense, past - a verb tense that expresses actions or states in the past

Translations

preterito

passé prétérit

preterit

pretérito

preteritum

preterite

[ˈpretərɪt] N (Ling) → pretérito m

preterite

[ˈpretərɪt] n → prétérit m

preterite

, (esp US) preterit

adj verb → im Imperfekt; (in English) → im Präteritum; preterite form → Imperfekt-/Präteritumsform f; the preterite tense → das Imperfekt, das Präteritum

n → Imperfekt nt, → Präteritum nt; in the preterite → im Imperfekt/Präteritum

preterite

[ˈprɛt/ərɪt] n → (tempo) passato, preterito

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References in periodicals archive ?

The above percentages however represent only one of the arithmetical markers used in the evaluation of the formal parameters of the prefixed preterite participles and hence must be supplemented.

The pre-verbal I- in early Middle English: an analysis of the formal parameters of the prefixed verbs

Given the difficulty of Christine's language, it would have been helpful to include a fuller discussion of unusual forms of the subjunctive, future, preterite, and the feminine past participle.

The Love Debate Poems of Christine de Pizan

Generally, here the consonant s is not considered as a trace of the 3P personal suffix *-sV but as a trace of an old preterite (or of the perfect participle) suffix *-sV (Osnovy 1974 : 324).

On the evidence: of the verbal 3rd person suffix *-sV in Uralic/[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]

Another example that illustrates the practical character of this work is that the anterior preterite and the future subjunctive are not discussed, as they are no longer used in everyday Spanish.

Spanish Verbs

Since the preceding line also has a passive (see above), I take utessi as Dt preterite and not D perfect, as argued by Hallo/Moran 1979: 103 (cf.

Notes on the Old Babylonian epics of Anzu and Etana

Two types of verb forms were analyzed in the present study: preterite and past participle forms.

Verb forms in medieval Anglo-Irish texts

The Udmurt "first past tense" on -i- (/-a-) is actually not preterite in classical sense--in the same way as the "second past tense" in -em (/-am) is not perfect: the first is used to mark only the action which took place in the past (either finished or not) without any attention to its results, the second--to mark the existing result of the action without concerning if the action really took place and how, where and when.

Eberhard Winkler, Udmurt, Munchen 2001 (Languages of the World)

But structuralism is right to imply that, for example, went as a suppletive preterite of go must mean something different from what *goed would mean, if it existed.

Semantik-Sprache und Denken

Monophthongization of ai, au to e, o is of course a trivial phonetic development, and TB prautkar (B108 b6) may be a morphologically regular Class III preterite /prewtk-ere/ (hence swara kalymim po prautkar nermi(t)em (p)oy[s]i[nta]sa "they completely filled the four directions with artificial Buddhas"?

Instrumenta Tocharica

The present author's earlier paper (Welna 2001) discussed the loss in Middle English of the continuations of eode, the preterite of the infinitive gan 'go', which seems to have reflected an attempt at removing the suppletive past tense form from the Old English sequence inf.

Nim or take? A competition between two high frequency verbs in Middle English

Past participle forms act as the indirect preterite in these dialects, for example (11), (12):

Evidentiality in South Estonian/[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]

One of the interesting findings is that a binary semantic distinction between present and past time exists with the preterite forms of the verb zijn and the present perfect form of the lexical verbs predominating.