Introduction to the Tenses

In Nahuatl, the principal difference between nouns and verbs is the ability of the latter to express tense and mood and the impossibility of this with the former.

Nahuatl verbs have nine tense and mood forms plus two derived conjugations called directional (22.4, 5). Thanks to its morphological regularity, this system, which we will look at one piece at a time, is actually quite simple.

Each of the nine forms is built upon one of the four verb bases. In this sense, the term “base” signifies a variant of the verb stem.

We have seen (1.1) that all the forms can be derived from the present tense and that the present form is also the dictionary listing. This dictionary form is called base 1 (long base).

We are now going to study the preterite tense. This form pretty much corresponds to the simple past (and occasionally the pluperfect) of English, and is built on base 2.

Principles for Forming the Preterite

The preterite consists of the following elements:

1. (1) optionally, the augment ō- (8.8)

2. (2) the regular verb prefixes

3. (3) base 2 (the short base) of the verb (8.3–7)

4. (4) the participial suffix (see later discussion)

5. (5) in the plural, the suffix -ê.