Tense: tense
Kyrgyz has a complex tense/aspect/modality system.
Kyrgyz verbs can indicate actions in the present, past or future. Complex tenses for actions that happened before, during, or after a past event can also be specified by suffixation. The actions that happen before, during, or after a future event are expressed using an auxiliary.
The verbs expressing actions that happened before a reference in the past are marked with value Pqp.
For events that happen during the past reference, we use Tense=Past with proper progressive (Prog) or habitual (Hab) Aspect.
Past: past tense
Kyrgyz past tense is realized with -ты or -ген or эле suffixes on verbal predicates.
The difference between the -ты and -ген forms are related to evidentiality (Evident) rather than Tense. Both morphemes refer to a (completed) past event.
These suffixes also combine with others to refer to time relative to a past event, which will be discussed below.
Examples
- үйүнө кетти ‘she went home’
- үйүнө кеткен ‘she went home’ (evidential: speaker does not have direct information on the event)
- ал үйгө кетиши керек эле ‘she should have gone home’
- эгер ал үйүнө кетсе эле ‘if she went home’
- ал ооруп калды ‘she was sick’
- *ал ооруп калган ‘she was sick’ (evidential)
Fut: future tense
Kyrgyz future tense is expressed with same present tense .
Copular predicates cannot directly take future Tense morphemes.
Examples
- үйгө кетет ‘she will go home’
Pres: present tense
The present tense in Kyrgyz is realized by lack of past or future morphemes. If the action continues, the жатат suffix is used.
Examples
- үйгө бара жатат. ‘she is going home’
- үйгө кетиши керек ‘she should go home’
- үйгө кетет ‘she goes home’
The differences between these forms are Aspect and Mood differences.
Tense in other languages: [ab] [abq] [aqz] [arr] [bej] [bg] [bm] [cs] [cy] [el] [en] [es] [fi] [fr] [ga] [gn] [gub] [ha] [hu] [hy] [it] [jaa] [ka] [ky] [pcm] [ps] [qpm] [ru] [sah] [say] [sl] [sv] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj] [xcl]