Transcript Imperfect tense

In this little story, two slaves are returning home when they are confronted by a
dog wandering loose in the streets. As with many wild street mongrols, this pooch
doesn’t much like people, and so our two slaves find themselves in quite a pickle!
You will also see the use of two different forms of past tense verbs.
When the story’s action is about to change course, when something suddenly interrupts
what the characters were doing, or to show that something that used to happen in the
past stopped happening, we use what is called the IMPERFECT tense form of the verb.
When the story needs to explain just a one time event, just a basic old “past tense”
(-ed on the end of the word for example), we use what is called the PERFECT tense verb form.
Imperfect tense
The slaves were walking through the
street.
Perfect tense
Suddenly a dog barked.
Here we see the slaves doing something
(walking) that will soon be interupted by
another event.
Now we have the action (dog barking) that
interrupted the other action (slaves walking).
To show the reader or listener that this
change of action will soon occur, English uses
the helping verb “were” and adds an “-ing” to
the end of the verb “walk”.
To show that this action is just a one time
event and that it is not going to be
interrupted (like the “slaves walking” was),
English just uses the regular past tense form
of the verb (barked) with no helping verb.
Imperfect tense
Perfect tense
In Latin, instead of using a helping verb (such as In Latin, the we see that the PERFECT tense
“was” or “were” in English) the IMPERFECT
form of the verb does NOT have that “–ba-”
tense uses a different ending.
syllable right before the singular ending “-t”.
Imperfect tense verbs use the “–ba-” syllable,
placed right before the plural ending “-nt ” to
show the imperfect tense is being used.
Remember – the perfect tense usually has a
slightly different spelling than the present
tense form, just as it does in English!
Grumio was afraid of the dog.
“Pest!” shouted the cook.
Here the slave is showing fear, but at some
point in the story something will stop Grumio
from being afraid.
Grumio, in panic and fear, yells at the
bothersome mutt. His action (shouted) just
happened once.
The use of the Imperfect tense (“was afraid” or
“timebat”) for the verb shows that this feeling
of fear will at some point stop because of some
other action.
The shout was not interrupted by another
action and it did not repeat itself over a
period of time, thus the use of the Perfect
tense (“shouted” or “clamavit”) verb form .
Clemens was brave.
But the dog overpowered Clemens
Clemens WAS brave, but that bravery came to an end when the dog overpowered him. The use
of the two different types of past tenses (Imperfect and Perfect) let’s us convey much more
meaning and detail when describing event that happened in the past.
We can get across which actions were continually done in the past, or happened in the past but
were interrupted by something else (Imperfect tense)
We can show which actions caused those interruptions or which were just simple, one time only
actions in the past (Perfect tense)
LATIN VERB ENDINGS
TO SHOW
SUBJECT & TENSE
Singular
(He, She, It)
Plural
(They)
Present Tense
Endings
Imperfect Tense
Endings
Perfect Tense Endings
-bat
-it
laborat = He works.
laborabat = He was
working.
laboravit = He worked.
ancilla laborat =
ancilla laborabat =
ancilla laboravit =
The maid works.
The maid was working
-nt
-bant
-erunt
laborant = They work.
laborabant = They were
working.
laboraverunt = They
worked.
servi laborabant =
The slaves were working.
servi laboraverunt =
The slaves worked
-t
servi laborant =
The slaves work.
.
The maid worked.
Which verb from these two sentences is in the imperfect tense?
Which verb from these two sentences is in the imperfect tense?
Try to translate this part of the story into good English.
Make sure you think about the tense of the verbs in each sentence
and how you should translate those tenses into English.
Try to translate this part of the story into good English.
Make sure you think about the tense of the verbs in each sentence
and how you should translate those tenses into English.