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Pluperfect. The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect ), usually called past perfect in English, characterizes certain verb forms and grammatical tenses involving an action from an antecedent point in time. Examples in English are: "we had arrived " before the game began; "they had been writing " when the bell rang.
The terms perfective and perfect should not be confused. A perfect tense (abbreviated PERF or PRF) is a grammatical form used to describe a past event with present relevance, or a present state resulting from a past situation. For example, "I have put it on the table" implies both that I put the object on the table and that it is still there ...
Perfect (grammar) The perfect tense or aspect ( abbreviated PERF or PRF) is a verb form that indicates that an action or circumstance occurred earlier than the time under consideration, often focusing attention on the resulting state rather than on the occurrence itself. An example of a perfect construction is I have made dinner.
Prophetic perfect tense. The prophetic perfect tense is a literary technique commonly used in religious texts, [ 1] which describes future events that are so certain to happen that they are referred to in the past tense as if they had already happened. [ 2]
Imperfect. The imperfect ( abbreviated IMPERF) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to walk". It contrasts with preterite forms, which refer to a single completed event ...
In the grammar of Ancient Greek, an aorist (pronounced / ˈeɪ.ərɪst / or / ˈɛərɪst /) (from the Ancient Greek ἀόριστος aóristos - ‘undefined’) is a type of verb that carries certain information about a grammatical feature called aspect. For example, an English speaker might say either "The tree died" or "The tree was dying ...
In this manner, the aorist was often used as an unmarked past tense, and the perfect came to develop a resultative use, [6] which is why the term perfect is used for this meaning in modern languages. Other Indo-European languages lost the aorist entirely. In the development of Latin, for example, the aorist merged with the perfect. [7]
Preterite. The preterite or preterit ( / ˈprɛtərɪt / 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 ...