Tense: tense
Tense
Tense is a feature that specifies the time when the action took / takes / will take place, in relation to the current moment or to another action in the utterance.
Pomak verbal forms convey both tense and aspect information, therefore a complete description would specify both Tense and Aspect features.
In Aspect the pairs Aspect=Prog|Tense=Past and Aspect=Iter|Tense=Past were introduced to describe the fact that Pomak views iterations of
events in the past either by focussing on their progressive nature or on the telic nature of each or the events in the iteration.
Τhis description diverges from the one adopted by other Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Kroatian).
For the description of the present and the simple past tense of Pomak, the pairs
Aspect=Imp|Tense=Pres, Aspect=Imp|Tense=Past are used for the imperfective forms
and the pairs Aspect=Perf|Tense=Pres, Aspect=Perf|Tense=Past for the perfective ones respectively.
Past: past tense / preterite / aorist
The past tense denotes actions that happened before the current moment.
Examples
Aspect=Prog
- méreh / mérešo mǽstoto kugáta zafáti da letí “I was measuring the fieled, when it started raining”
- gradǽhme kóštoto kugáta so toj radí “we were building that house, when he was born”
- napréš sas múleta kárahme darvá “in old times we were carrying wood with mules”
Aspect=Imp
- triš go mérih mǽstoto i tríšto izkárah drúgy metrá “three times I measured the field and three times I found an other measurement”
- triš je gradího isózi küprǘje i na ugradího je kákna trǽbava “three times they built this bridge but they did not build it as they should [i.e. properly]”
- dvaš go kárahme tomofílese na mástaræ i na mažýho da nájdot kaná mú je “twice we took the car to the technician, but they could not find what was wrong with it”
Aspect=Iter
- agá ídehme u dǽda, toj nú sýpešo čáje i zafátešo da razkázava stáry meselé “whenever we went to the grandfather’s, he served us some tea and started to tell us old stories”
- stánešo sabáhlajin, naj napréš nahránešo kúčetata i kótetata, azám nagodǽšo prógimo za tæh “he used to wake up in the morning; first of all he would feed the dogs and the cats, then he would prepare breakfast for themeselves
- agá so vórnešo at pazárene, zberǽšo vrit dečjána i dadǽšo mí šikére íli kanána drúgo be kúpil “when he was returning from the bazaar, he was gathering all the children and giving them candies or whatever else he had bought”
Aspect=Perf
- u dumá sí fprǽhme vaz sabáh “at home we arrived in the morning”
- na drúguš fpírahme pó ráno, isǽ argísahme málko “other times we were arriving earlier, this time we were a little late”
- za tri méseca farníh on kilá “in three months I lost ten kilos”
Pres: present tense
The present tense denotes actions that are happening right now and are crossing the moment of speaking, or actions that usually happen.
Examples
Aspect=Imp
- vaz pralét so atváret nóvy rábaty i zbírot ergáte “in spring new vacancies are opening and they are gathering workers”
- lǽtase hódime čósto na denízene “in summer we are often going to the sea”
- zimóse páda gulǽm snæg faf barčínoso “in winter a lot of snow is falling on the mountains”
Aspect=Perf
- kugá še dójdeš da to vídime - zabalǽhme so “when will you come for us to see you? - we have missed you”
- *da na zabaráviš da mí kúpiš hlǽba* “do not forget to buy me bread”
- še to pópytom annó rábato i íštom kážaš na právo “I’ll ask you a thing and I want you to answer me straight”
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]