Tense: tense
| Values: | Pres | Past |
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.
The Tense feature occurs with verbs (VERB and AUX).
Verbs in Pashto have simple forms for the present and past tenses. There is also a compound future tense and perfect tenses, that are described below.
Pres: present
The present tense denotes actions that are happening in the present moment or happen repeatedly in the period spanning through the present moment.
The present forms are imperfective and they are marked with Aspect=Imp feature,
although there are is no present perfective,
since there cannot be a punctual action happening in the present moment.
The present perfective forms are used for the subjunctive mood,
which does not have any Tense nor Aspect feature marked.
Formation
- present imperfective stem + present endings
Compound use
- future imperfective: auxiliary word بۀ bë (with aux:fut relation) + present
Examples
- present imperfective: کتاب لرلم kitấb lwalë́m “I am reading a book”
Past: past
The past tense denotes actions that happened (once or repeatedly) or were happening in the past. It has simple forms for both aspects. The transitive verbs in the past tense agree with their objects instead of the subjects.
Simple uses and formation
- imperfective: past imperfective stem + past endings
- perfective: past perfective stem + past endings
The
Tense=Pastfeature is also used for past participles: - participle: past imperfective stem + ending لی- -ë́lay
Compound uses
- habitual: auxiliary word بۀ bë (with aux:hab relation) + past imperfective (see also Aspect for details).
- perfect tenses: participle + forms of ول wël “to be” (with aux:perf relation, see below)
Examples
- past imperfective: ما پرون کتاب لوستۀ mâ parún kitấb lwëstë́ “I was reading a book yesterday”
- past perfective: ما پرون کتاب ولوستۀ mâ parún kitấb wë́lwëstë “I read a book yesterday”
Future
The future tense denotes actions that will happen (once or repeatedly) or will be happening in the future. It has only compound forms and distinguishes both aspects.
Formation
- imperfective: auxiliary word بۀ bë (with aux:fut relation) + present imperfective
- perfective: auxiliary word بۀ bë (with aux:fut relation) + subjunctive
Examples
- future imperfective: صبا بۀ کتاب لرلم sabấ bë kitấb lwalë́m “I will be reading a book tomorrow”
- future perfective: صبا بۀ کتاب ولرلم sabấ bë kitấb wë́lwalëm “I will read a book tomorrow”
Perfect tenses
In Pashto, there are also compound forms of perfect tenses: present perfect, past perfect and future perfect. They describe an event preceding (i.e, that has / had / will have happened before) another event, which is expressed by a usual tense. The term “perfect” here should not be confused with the perfective aspect which means a punctual event in past or future, not precedence like the perfect tenses.
Formation and use
The perfect tenses use indicative forms of the auxiliary verb ول wël “to be” (with aux:perf relation), which do not distinguish the aspect:
- present: past participle of the content verb + present of the auxiliary verb
- past: past participle of the content verb + past of the auxiliary verb
- future: past participle of the content verb + future of the auxiliary verb
The auxiliary verb in the present perfect may be omitted, if the subject is known. A phenomenom called “split ergativity” occurs in all perfect tenses for transitive verbs: both participle and the auxiliary verb agree with the object, instead of the subject.
Examples
- present perfect, intransitive, omitted auxiliary: پلار کور ته تللی plâr kor ta tlë́lay “The father has gone home”
- past perfect, transitive: ما نجلۍ لیدلې وه mâ nǰë́lëy lidë́le wa “I had seen the girl”
- future perfect, intransitive: دلته به راغلی وي dë́lta bë râġë́lay wi “He will have come here”
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] [naq] [nmf] [pcm] [ps] [qpm] [ru] [sah] [say] [sl] [sv] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj] [xcl]