The preterite or preterit ( PRET-ər-it; abbreviated pret or prt) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past. In some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple past tense. In general, it combines the perfective aspect (event viewed as a single whole; it is not to be confused with the similarly named perfect) with the past tense and may thus also be termed the perfective past. In grammars of particular languages the preterite is sometimes called the past historic, or (particularly in the Greek grammatical tradition) the aorist. When the term preterite is used in relation to specific languages, it may not correspond precisely to this definition. In English it can be used to refer to the simple past verb form, which sometimes (but not always) expresses perfective aspect. The case of German is similar: the Präteritum is the simple (non-compound) past tense, which does not always imply perfective aspect, and is anyway often replaced by the Perfekt (compound past) even in perfective past meanings. Preterite may be denoted by the glossing abbreviation pret or prt. The word derives from the Latin praeteritum (the perfective participle of praetereo), meaning 'passed by' or 'past'.
Romance languages and Latin
Latin In Latin, the perfect tense most commonly functions as the preterite, and refers to an action completed in the past. If the past action was not completed, one would use the imperfect. The perfect in Latin also functions in other circumstances as a present perfect. Typical conjugation:
Dūxī can be translated as (preterite) "I led", "I did lead", or (in the present perfect) "I have led." A pronoun subject is often omitted, and usually used for emphasis.
French
In French, the preterite is known as le passé simple (the simple past). It is a past tense that indicates an action taken once in the past that was completed at some point in the past (translated: "<verb>ed"). This is as opposed to the imperfect (l'imparfait), used in expressing repeated, continual, or habitual past actions (often corresponding to English's past continuous was/were <verb>ing or habitual used to <verb>). In the spoken language, the compound tense known as le passé composé ("the compound past") began to compete with it from the 12th century onwards, and has since replaced it almost entirely. French simple past is mostly used in a narrative way to tell stories and describe successive actions. Novelists use it commonly: it brings more suspense, as the sentence can be short without any temporal reference needed. In oral language, the simple past is rarely used except while telling a story; therefore, it would be atypical to hear it in a standard discussion. Typical conjugations:
Romanian
In Romanian, the preterite is known as perfectul simplu (literally, the simple past or simple perfect). The preterite indicates a past accomplished action (translated: "verbed"); however, this tense is not frequent in the official language and not frequent in the standard speech (not used in Republic of Moldova and not used in the Romanian regions of Transylvania, Muntenia and Moldova). The general tendency is to use the compound past (perfectul compus) to express a past action that is perceived as completed at the moment of speaking. Simple past is still actively used in current speech in the southwestern part of Romania, especially in Oltenia, but also in Banat, Crișana and Maramureș, mostly in rural areas. Usage of the preterite is very frequent in written narrative discourse, the simple past of the speech verbs being generally after a dialogue line in narration:
Aici avem o crimă!, zise polițistul. This is a murder! said the policeman. When used in everyday speech in standard Romanian, the preterite is used with the value of recent past, a recently completed action:
Tocmai îl auzii pe George la radio. I have just heard George on the radio. The second person is often used in questions about finishing an action in progress that is supposed to be over, giving the question a more informal tone:
Gata, citirăți? Are you done, have you read [the texts]? The forms of the simple perfect are made of an unstressed stem of the infinitive, a stressed suffix that is different in each group of verbs, and the endings -i, -și, -∅, -răm, -răți, -ră, which are the same for all the verbs:
Italian In Italian, the preterite is called passato remoto (literally "remote past"). It is a past tense that indicates an action taken once and completed far in the past (mangiai, "I ate"). This is opposed to the imperfetto tense, which refers to a repeated, continuous, or habitual past action (mangiavo, "I was eating" or "I used to eat") and to the passato prossimo (literally "close past"), which refers to an action completed recently (ho mangiato, "I have eaten"). In colloquial usage, the use of the passato remoto becomes more prevalent going from the North to the South of Italy. While Northern Italians and Sardinians use passato prossimo in any perfective situation, Southern Italians will use passato remoto even for recent events. Typical conjugations:
*Many -ere verbs in Italian have stem alternations in the 1st person singular, 3rd person singular and 3rd person plural. Some verbs (with d/t in their stem, including credere) also have endings -etti (1st person singular), -ette (3rd person singular), and -ettero (3rd person plural). Additionally, unlike in most languages, the third person plural is stressed on the irregular root. (Posero is stressed on the first syllable (POH-se-ro), not the second syllable (poh-SEH-ro).) In a few remarkable cases, all three options exist for a single verb, although usage of each of these forms may vary. For perdere for example, the first person singular can occur as persi (irregular and most correct form), perdei or perdetti (compare to the past participle which can be perso (irregular, most correct) or perduto (regular)).
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
