The imperfect

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

The imperfect: the past that goes on and on

The aorist turns the past into a point: rekoh, dođoh, ode voz, a click and it is over. The imperfect turns the past into a line. Padaše kiša. It was raining. The rain here does not simply “happen”: it goes on falling, and against that backdrop anything else may take place. The imperfect is built as simply as the aorist: one word, no auxiliary biti, no l-participle and no gender; the person sits right in the ending.

First, its place in the language, so that you spend your effort where it counts. The lesson “The tense system in overview” put the imperfect, together with the aorist, at the bookish pole, and rightly so. In Belgrade or Novi Sad you will hardly ever hear it: in everyday conversation almost a single form of it survives, beše, from the verb biti. In books, on the other hand (folk songs and tales, nineteenth-century classics, any text written to sound old), you will meet it often. So the goal of this lesson is to recognise the imperfect at a glance and to feel the shade it adds; you need to build it yourself only well enough not to confuse it with the aorist of the lesson “The aorist”.

One word: suffix plus personal ending

The personal endings of the imperfect are the same in every type, so there are exactly five lines to learn. Look hard at the 3rd person plural: no other Serbian tense has the ending -hu, and it is your most reliable sign.

As in the aorist, the 2nd and 3rd person singular are identical: gledaše is both “you were watching” and “he was watching”. The types of imperfect differ in what comes before the ending, and there are three such sets. Which one a verb takes depends on how its infinitive stem ends: drop the -ti of the infinitive and look at the last sound.

• Stem in -a (verbs in -ati, even when their present tense looks different: pisati, pišem, but pisah) takes the suffix -a-, which means the endings attach straight to the stem: gledah, čitah, pevah, čekah, igrah, slušah, padah, imah, pisah, držah, ćutah.
• Stem in -i or -e (verbs in -iti and -eti whose present ends in -im) takes the suffix -ja-, and this j softens the last consonant: nošah, moljah, viđah. This is the most capricious set, so it gets its own section below.
• Stem in a consonant (verbs in -sti and -ći) takes the suffix -ija-: tresijah, pletijah, vucijah, pecijah. The stem is the one of the aorist (tresoh, pletoh, vukoh, pekoh), except that k turns into c before i. This set is the rarest of all: you will meet these forms mainly in old texts.

Here are all the forms of the three model verbs and of biti. Read each row in the order ja, ti/on, mi, vi, oni:

These forms never take sam, and they do not show gender: Marko and Marija both say gledah about themselves. This is what makes both simple past tenses, the aorist and the imperfect, shorter than the perfect, and it is why old Serbian prose written with them feels so dense.

The second set: -jah and iotation

In the largest group of verbs, those in -iti and -eti, the imperfect suffix begins with j, and this j does not stay put: it merges with the last consonant of the stem. This is the same iotation that the lesson “Iotation” was devoted to, and the rules are familiar: s plus j gives š, z gives ž, d gives đ, t gives ć, l gives lj, n gives nj, while the lip consonants p, b, m, v do not fuse with j and take an inserted l: ljubiti, ljubljah.

For this set the stem is easiest to take from the present tense: drop the ending -im of the 1st person. Nosim gives nos-, mislim gives misl-, živim gives živ-. Then add -jah and let the consonant soften: voziti, vožah; voditi, vođah; sedeti, seđah.

Two provisos. With govoriti there is nothing to soften: r does not merge with j, and the imperfect simply comes out without the j, govorah, govoraše. And ići is an exception that follows this set in spite of its infinitive; its forms iđaše, iđahu are common in books, so learn them separately.

Cheat sheet

The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.

The imperfect

A simple past in one word: stem plus suffix plus personal ending, with no biti and no l-participle. No gender; 2nd and 3rd person singular are identical; built from imperfective verbs. Meaning: the lasting, background, simultaneous or habitual past. A bookish tense: in conversation almost only beše.

Personal endings: the same for every type

Three sets, chosen by the end of the infinitive stem

• Set 1 (even with another present: pisati, pisah): čitah, pevah, čekah, igrah, slušah, padah, imah, pisah, držah, ćutah.
• Set 2 (take the stem from the present, drop -im; s→š, z→ž, d→đ, t→ć, l→lj, n→nj, p, b, m, v + l): moljah, viđah, mišljah, življah, vožah, vođah, seđah, ljubljah, zalažah, donošah; no softening in govorah; exception ići: iđah, iđaše, iđahu.
• Set 3 (rare; the aorist’s stem, k → c): pletijah, vucijah, pecijah.
• Ijekavian: bijah, bješe. “Would” is the aorist, not the imperfect: bih, bi, bismo.

Aorist or imperfect: gledati

• -hu, -ja-, -ija-: imperfect only.
• -še: “you, he” in the imperfect, “they” in the aorist.
• Perfective verb: the aorist, pogledaše “they looked” against gledaše “he was looking”.

Uses

Padaše kiša kad stigosmo pred kuću. It was raining when we pulled up at the house. (background)

Dok on govoraše, svi ćutahu. While he was speaking, everyone was silent. (simultaneity)

Svakog jutra iđaše na pijacu. Every morning he would go to the market. (habit)

Kako se beše zoveš? What was your name again? (the memory-jogger, almost the only living use)

Building block of the pluperfect: Beše zaboravio ključeve. He had forgotten the keys.

Where it lives: old books, folk songs and tales, texts written to sound old; it holds on better in the Torlak dialects of south-eastern Serbia. Your own past, spoken and written, is the perfect.