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. In Bulgarian aspect and tense are separate, although not completely independent of each other.
In Bulgarian there are 9 tenses: 3 synthetic and 6 analytic.
Since the feature Tense is assigned to a single word, i.e. it relates to synthetic forms, in Bulgarian it is applicable to only 3 tenses: Present, Aorist and Imperfect.
Past: past tense / preterite / aorist
The past tense denotes actions that happened before the current moment. In Bulgarian, this is aorist. It can be used with both imperfective and perfective verbs.
Examples
- Те дойдоха навреме. / Te doydoha navreme “They came on time”.
- Взе ли си изпита? / Vze li si izpita? “Did you take the exam?”
Pres: present tense
The present tense denotes actions that are happening right now, that are crossing the moment of speaking or that usually happen. In Bulgarian present tense has a lot of usages: for actual activities (where the perfective verbs are blocked); for historical events, for habitual activities, etc.
Examples
- В момента чета. / V momenta cheta “I am reading now”.
- Всеки ден чета. / Vseki den cheta “I read every day”.
Imp: imperfect
Imperfect is a special case of the past tense. It denotes actions that are happening during some past moment. These actions might continue after the moment of speaking, but also might not, i.e. the evidence is not in the form itself, but it is in the context. Both verbs - perfective and imperfective - are used in imperfect tense.
Examples
- Когато се прибрах вкъщи, децата вече спяха. / Kogato se pribrah vkashti, detsata veche spyaha “When I came home, the children were already sleeping.”
- Щом дойдеше, веднага запалваше цигара. / Shtom doydeshe, vednaga zapalvashe tsigara “Every time he came, he always lit a cigarette”.
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]