Imperfect tense

The imperfect tense, in the classical grammar of several Indo-European languages, denotes a past tense with an imperfective aspect. In English, it is referred to as the past continuous tense.

The term originated with the Latin language because "imperfect" refers to an uncompleted or abandoned action.

Imperfect in Indo-European languages

English

In English, the imperfect or past continuous tense is manifested in the verb phrases:

* "I was eating..."
* "I used to eat..."

"eating" and "eat" are present verb tenses, but the action is made to happen in the past. Contrast to "I ate...", which uses the past tense of the verb.

Note that "Back then, I would eat early, and would walk to school..." signifies "not" the conditional, but rather, past actions of imperfect tense in English, [cite web|url=http://www.ultralingua.com/onlinedictionary/shared/references/spanish/conditional.htm|title=UltraLingua Online Dictionary, "Conditional tense"] but one must use care when translating to other languages.

In modern linguistics, and especially in TEFL contexts, it is more usual to refer to this as the "past continuous" or the "past progressive" tense.

Latin

Conjugation of the imperfect indicative:

Examples:
* There are only three irregular verbs in the imperfect tense: "ir", "ser", and "ver". Ir is irregular because it follows its own unique structure, leaving the normal conjugation pattern to become "iba." Ser is irregular because the "er" ending of the verb becomes the stem when it becomes "era." Ver, which becomes veía, is irregular because it keeps the "e" from the "er" ending of the infinitive that is usually cut off when the verb is conjugated. The "a" endings are a normal part of the imperfect tense even for "er" and "ir" verbs.

* The "yo" and "el/ella/usted" forms are the same for verbs ending in "ar", "er", and "ir"; thus, in the cases of subjective ambiguity where context be insufficient, a pronoun or subjective noun is included for the sake of clarification.

Persian

Like all other past tenses, imperfect is conjugated regularly for all verbs. Formation: " [preverb] + mi- + past stem + past ending"

* Persian has separate tenses for past continuous and imperfect.
* In Persian the prefix "mi" gives imperfective aspect to the tense. For example, the mentioned imperfect tense has been built by prefixing "mi" to simple past. Therefore, it is possible to coin new imperfective tenses.

Imperfect in Afro-Asiatic languages

Hebrew

Biblical Hebrew had only two aspects (not tenses). The perfect aspect was used for completed actions, and generally implies past time. The imperfect aspect was used for uncompleted actions, and thus could imply present or future time. Modern Hebrew uses the participle for the present time and reserves the imperfect for future time. The Hebrew imperfect is noteworthy for having not only suffixes but also a syllable added at the "beginning" of the stem, and thus is often called the "prefix conjugation".

Literary and Classical Arabic

Like Hebrew, Classical Arabic and thus Literary Arabic has two aspects, denoting completed and uncompleted actions respectively. The perfect is marked with a "suffix conjugation", the imperfect with a "prefix conjugation". In addition, a number of particles and auxiliary verbs help enrich the verb system.

Imperfect in Dravidian languages

Malayalam

In Malayalam (verbs are never conjugated for grammatical person, which is indicated by a pronoun), there are two indicative imperfect tenses, 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 tense, 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 tense, 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 tense. 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