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.
- Когато се прибрах вкъщи, децата вече спяха. / Kogato se pribrah vkashti, detsata veche spyaha “When I came home, the children were already asleep.”
- Щом дойдеше, веднага запалваше цигара. / Shtom doydeshe, vednaga zapalvashe tsigara “Every time he came, he always lit a cigarette”.
Treebank Statistics (UD_Bulgarian)
This feature is universal.
It occurs with 3 different values: Imp, Past, Pres.
20091 tokens (13%) have a non-empty value of Tense.
6395 types (24%) occur at least once with a non-empty value of Tense.
2680 lemmas (18%) occur at least once with a non-empty value of Tense.
The feature is used with 3 part-of-speech tags: bg-pos/VERB (17666; 11% instances), bg-pos/AUX (1906; 1% instances), bg-pos/ADJ (519; 0% instances).
VERB
17666 bg-pos/VERB tokens (90% of all VERB tokens) have a non-empty value of Tense.
The most frequent other feature values with which VERB and Tense co-occurred: VerbForm=Fin (17665; 100%), Voice=Act (17634; 100%), Definite=EMPTY (16099; 91%), Mood=Ind (16067; 91%), Person=3 (13482; 76%), Number=Sing (12476; 71%), Aspect=Imp (10581; 60%).
VERB tokens may have the following values of Tense:
Imp(1021; 6% of non-emptyTense): нямаше, имаше, трябваше, щеше, можеше, имало, гледаше, имах, трябвало, щелиPast(4912; 28% of non-emptyTense): каза, съобщи, заяви, стана, обяви, предаде, съобщиха, би, обясни, разбраPres(11733; 66% of non-emptyTense): е, са, има, няма, може, трябва, могат, бъде, имат, съмEMPTY(1886): беше, бе, бяха, била, бил, били, било, е, бях, направено
| Paradigm мога | Pres | Past | Imp |
|---|---|---|---|
| Definite=Ind|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing | могъл | можел | |
| Definite=Ind|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing | могла | можела | |
| Definite=Ind|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing | могло | можело | |
| Definite=Ind|Number=Plur | могли | можели | |
| Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1 | мога | можах | можех |
| Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2 | можеш | ||
| Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3 | може | можа | можеше |
| Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1 | можем | Можехме | |
| Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=2 | можете | ||
| Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3 | могат | можаха | можеха |
AUX
1906 bg-pos/AUX tokens (94% of all AUX tokens) have a non-empty value of Tense.
The most frequent other feature values with which AUX and Tense co-occurred: Voice=Act (1906; 100%), VerbForm=Fin (1787; 94%), Mood=Ind (1787; 94%), Aspect=Imp (1658; 87%), Person=3 (1610; 84%), Number=Sing (1277; 67%).
AUX tokens may have the following values of Tense:
Past(522; 27% of non-emptyTense): бе, бяха, беше, бил, били, била, бях, било, бяхмеPres(1384; 73% of non-emptyTense): е, са, бъде, бъдат, съм, сме, си, сте, биват, бъдемEMPTY(125): би, бих, биха, е, са, бихте, бихме, бъдат, съм, беше
| Paradigm съм | Pres | Past |
|---|---|---|
| Definite=Ind|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|VerbForm=Part | бил | |
| Definite=Ind|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|VerbForm=Part | била | |
| Definite=Ind|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|VerbForm=Part | било | |
| Definite=Ind|Number=Plur|VerbForm=Part | били | |
| Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|VerbForm=Fin | съм | бях |
| Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|VerbForm=Fin | си | беше |
| Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|VerbForm=Fin | е | бе, беше |
| Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|VerbForm=Fin | сме | бяхме |
| Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=2|VerbForm=Fin | сте | |
| Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|VerbForm=Fin | са | бяха |
ADJ
519 bg-pos/ADJ tokens (4% of all ADJ tokens) have a non-empty value of Tense.
The most frequent other feature values with which ADJ and Tense co-occurred: Voice=Act (519; 100%), VerbForm=Part (517; 100%), Degree=EMPTY (357; 69%), Definite=Def (321; 62%), Aspect=Imp (315; 61%), Number=Sing (306; 59%).
ADJ tokens may have the following values of Tense:
Past(212; 41% of non-emptyTense): миналата, останалите, миналия, пострадали, загиналите, изминалата, останали, потъналата, участвали, записалитеPres(307; 59% of non-emptyTense): следващата, управляващите, следващите, следващия, водещи, предстоящите, предстоящата, присъстващите, работещите, следващотоEMPTY(13070): други, народното, българската, нова, другите, нови, европейската, последните, 2001, друг
| Paradigm присъствам | Pres | Past |
|---|---|---|
| Definite=Def|Degree=Pos|Number=Plur | присъстващите | |
| Definite=Def|Number=Plur | присъстващите | |
| Definite=Ind|Degree=Pos|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing | присъствал | |
| Definite=Ind|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing | присъстващ |
Tense seems to be lexical feature of ADJ. 99% lemmas (214) occur only with one value of Tense.
Relations with Agreement in Tense
The 10 most frequent relations where parent and child node agree in Tense:
VERB –[ccomp]–> VERB (1569; 53%),
VERB –[conj]–> VERB (1474; 76%),
VERB –[advcl]–> VERB (924; 62%),
VERB –[csubj]–> VERB (301; 70%),
VERB –[dobj]–> VERB (129; 62%),
VERB –[nsubj]–> VERB (3; 100%),
VERB –[cop]–> VERB (2; 67%),
VERB –[acl]–> VERB (1; 100%),
VERB –[iobj]–> VERB (1; 100%).
Tense in other languages: [bg] [cs] [de] [el] [en] [es] [eu] [fa] [fi] [fr] [ga] [he] [hu] [it] [ja] [ko] [sv] [u]