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 refers to the tense of a verb for an action or a condition as incomplete, continuous, or coincident with another action.

The term comes from the Latin, imperfectus [from per- meaning, through + facere - doing] which refers to an ongoing but uncompleted action or to an 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 non-finite verbs used to complete the sentences above. Although these non-finite verbs show the action in the sentence, they themselves do not have tense. The tense is indicated by the form of "to be" ("was") or the phrase "used to." The imperfect tense is contrasted with the simple past tense, in this case "I ate...."

"Would" can also be used for the imperfect tense. In the sentence "Back then, I would eat early and would walk to school...." "would" signifies not the conditional mood, but rather, repeated past actions of imperfect tense in English,^[1][2] and one must use care when translating to other languages.

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

Romance languages

Latin

Conjugation of the imperfect indicative:

Notes:

• The imperfect tense is signified by the signs ba and bā.
• The imperfect tense forms of esse are used as auxiliary verbs in the pluperfect tense of the passive voice along with perfect passive participles.

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. The following verbs are often used in the imperfect in several Romance languages:

English equivalent	French	Spanish	Italian	Portuguese
to love	aimer	amar	amare	amar
to desire	désirer	desear	desiderare	desejar
to want	vouloir	querer	volere	querer
to prefer	préférer	preferir	preferire	preferir
to hope	espérer	esperar	sperare	esperar
to feel	sentir	sentir	sentire	sentir
to regret/lament	regretter	lamentar	rimpiangere	lamentar
to be	être	ser/estar	essere	ser/estar
to be able to	pouvoir	poder	potere	poder
to know (a person)	connaître	conocer	conoscere	conhecer
to know (a thing)	savoir	saber	sapere	saber
to believe	croire	creer	credere	acreditar
to think	penser	pensar	pensare	pensar
to imagine	imaginer	imaginar	immaginare	imaginar
to stand/stay	rester	quedar	stare	ficar

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 tense 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

In order to form the imperfect tense for French regular verbs, take the present tense e.g. "nous " (we) form, subtract the -ons ending, and add the appropriate ending:

Examples:

Notes:

• 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.

Italian

Conjugation of the imperfect indicative:

Notes:

• Dropping the -re suffix and adding -vo, -vi, -va, -vamo, -vate, and -vano form verbs.
• There is only one irregular verb in the imperfect tense: essere.
• Although dire and opporre may seem irregular, they are a part of a verb family that has stronger roots to Latin equivalents. Other verbs include fare, bere, and ridurre.
• There is another imperfect tense 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 tense.

Spanish

It is sometimes called the copretérito. Conjugation of the imperfect indicative:

• 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 is 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.

Turkish

Turkish has separate tenses for past continuous and imperfect. In order 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 appropriate ending:

Examples:

Notes:

• If a verb ends in "t", it may change into "d". (Especially gitmek and etmek)
• If a verb ends in "a" or "e", the sounds must be changed while adding "-yor" (because of the auxiliary vowel "-i-".)

  "a" may change into "ı" or "u" (ağla -> ağlıyor, topla -> topluyor)

  "e" may change into "i" or "ü" (bekle -> bekliyor, söyle -> söylüyor)

• If the verb ends in a consonant, the auxiliary vowel "-i-" must be added before "-yor". But it becomes "-ı-", "-u-" or "-ü-" according to the last vowel of the verb

  gel -> geliyor

  sev -> seviyor

  bak -> bakıyor

  kork -> korkuyor

  gör -> görüyor

• Colloquially (and generally), "r" of "-yor" may not be pronounced.

In order to form the negative of the past continuous tense, the negation suffix "-ma" must be added before "-yor".

Examples:

Notes:

• The negation suffix "-ma" may change into "-mi", "-mı", "-mu", "-mü" according to the last vowel of the verb.

  gel -> gelmiyor (the last vowel is "e" or "i")

  bak -> bakmıyor (the last vowel is "a" or "ı")

  kork -> korkmuyor (the last vowel is "o" or "u")

  gör -> görmüyor (the last vowel is "ö" or "ü")

In order to form the interrogative of the past continuous tense, after adding "-yor", add the question preposition with personal suffixes:

Examples:

Slavic languages

Most Slavic languages have lost the Imperfect tense, however it is still perserved in Bulgarian and Macedonian. It is also officially retained in Serbo-Croatian but considered old-fashioned and restricted to older literature, poetic and stylistic reasons.

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

1. ^ "UltraLingua Online Dictionary & Grammar, "Conditional tense"". http://ultralingua.com/onlinedictionary/references/spanish/conditional.htm. 
2. ^ Spanish Conditional. StudySpanish.com