User:Physchim62/Catalan verbs

Catalan verb grammar is broadly similar to that of other Romance languages, with tense and mood being indicated by the use of both inflection and auxiliary verbs. Subject pronouns are normally omitted, as the person and number of the verb form are evident from the ending.

Infinitive
The infinitive (infinitiu) is the basic form of the verb, that which is usually listed in dictionaries, wordlists etc.

Simple tenses
Catalan has eight simple tenses:

The preterite is virtually obsolete in modern Catalan, having been replaced by the periphrastic perfect.

Fabra originally termed the future tense as the "future imperfect" ("futur imperfet"), although this term seems to have fallen into disuse. The simple future tense is equivalent to the English future with "shall" or "will", whereas the conditional tense is used to express actions which occured after some point of time in the past:
 * Assegura que tu cantaràs; assegurava que tu cantaries.
 * He makes sure that you will sing; he was making sure that you would sing.

The future pefect can also be used in this sense:
 * Vaig assegurar que ja haurà cantat.
 * I've made sure that he will have already sung.

Compound tenses
Note that Catalan grammars often distinguish between "compound" tenses (with haver as the auxiliary) and "periphrastic" tenses (with anar as the auxiliary). The present tense conjugations of haver and anar when used as auxiliaries are slightly different from the normal conjugations (see table).

The periphrastic perfect is the most common past tense in Catalan. It is used for actions or events which occured in a timeframe which is already finished, eg yesterday, last week, 300 years ago, etc.
 * Piqué va dimitir per la "decepció" que li va causar Rajoy.
 * Piqué resigned because of the "disappointment" that Rajoy caused him.
 * (El Periódico de Catalunya, 20 January 2008)

The past indefinite is used for actions or events which occured in a timeframe which is not yet complete (eg, today), and for actions which commenced in the past but which continue into the present.
 * Avui ha plogut molt.
 * It's rained a lot today.


 * No hem aconseguit tot el que volíem…
 * We haven't obtained everything we wanted…
 * (El Periódico de Catalunya, 20 January 2008)

In modern Catalan, haver is the only auxiliary verb used for the past indefinite and related tenses. In medieval Catalan, ésser was used as the auxilliary in these tenses for intransitive verbs of movement and for the vebs ésser, estar and romandre.

Other tenses are used roughly as in English: the past anterior tenses are virtually obsolete in modern Catalan. An example of the use of the pluperfect is given below:
 * Mai abans … una cèl·lula de terroristes islàmics havia estat tan a prop de preparar un atemptat a Espanya.
 * Never before … had a group of Islamic terrorists been so close to preparing an attack in Spain.
 * (El Periódico de Catalunya, 20 January 2008)

Passive voice
The passive voice is formed using either ésser or estar (depending on the sense) with the past participle. Catalan grammars usually consider this construction to be equivalent to the use of the past participle as a qualificative adjective. Accordingly, the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject of the sentence.

This construction is relatively rare: in many cases where English would use the passive voice, Catalan uses a reflexive verb.
 * Aquí es parla francès.
 * French is spoken here.

Continuous tenses
The present tense of estar can be used with the present participle to form a construction which is analogous to the English present continuous tense. Catalan grammars usually consider this construction to be equivalent to the use of the present participle as a qualificative adjective.

This construction is used far less frequently than the English present continuous tense (which is usually translated by the Catalan present simple tense): however it may be used to particularly emphasise the ongoing nature of an action.

A past continuous tense may also be formed by the imperfect tense of estar and the present participle. This construction is also rare, as the imperfect tense is usually preferred.

Future tense with anar
Catalan forms a construction with the prsent tense of anar + a + the infinitive, which is analogous to the English future tense with "going".
 * Vaig a tancar el meu compte.
 * I'm going to close my account.

This construction is only used in Catalan in situations where there is physical movement involved in the action: as such, it is not considered a separate tense but merely a verbal construction with anar in its normal sense (and with its normal conjugation). It should not be confused with the periphrastic perfect tense, which it superficially resembles.

Reflexive verbs
Reflexive verbs (verbs pronominals) are indicated by the ending -se or 's on the infinitive, depending on whether the infinitive ends in a consonant or a vowel: eg, endur-se, creure's. The declension of the pronouns in Catalan is complex: for a full treament, see Appendix:Catalan pronouns. The most common forms of the reflexive pronouns are given in the table: forms in parentheses are used before a vowel or an h. The reflexive pronoun comes before the verb (or the auxilliary in compound tenses) in all forms except the infinitive, the present participle and imperative.

Polite forms
In formal language, the second person pronouns tu and vosaltres (or vós) are replaced by the forms vostè and vostès. These are contractions of the forms vostra mercè and vostres mercès (lit. "Your Grace", "Your Graces"), and so take third person forms of the verb (singular and plural respectively).
 * Vostè m'ho ha dit.
 * You told me it.
 * Vostès no hi eren.
 * You weren't there.

Unlike other subject pronouns, vostè and vostès are not usually omitted.

Conjugations
As with other Romance languages, Catalan shows an extensive and varied range of conjugations. One common desk-top guide lists 120 conjugation types, a number which is similar to languages such as French, Italian or Spanish. The description is made more complicated by the existence of alternative verb forms in many of the dialectical regions of Catalan, and occasionally within standard written Catalan itself.

The classical description of Catalan verb grammar (due to Pompeu Fabra) recognises three main conjugations, with cantar, perdre and sentir as the type verbs. More recent authorities have tended to increase the number of type verbs to five or six:
 * splitting the second conjugation between verbs whose infinitive ends in -re and those ending in -er;
 * splitting the third conjugation into verbs such as sentir which add -eix- to the stem in many cases, and the minority of verbs such as dormir which don't;
 * further splitting the third conjugation into verbs whose stem ends in a consonant (eg patir) and those whose stem ends in a vowel (eg trair).

The present description is based purely on the ending of the infinitive form. Fabra's classical conjugations can be found in the table opposite.