The preterit (or preterite ) is a time of the Conjugaison of the verbs French. It is primarily used with the writing like Temps of narration, i.e. that in which are expressed the events completed successively, considered as “essential”, which constitute the screen of an account. The events “not-essential”, expressed with imperfect, more than perfect and conditional, are not mentioned rigorously in their real order of succession. Ex:

Dehors the storm made rage, no traveller would not venture up to now. He extinguished with all lamps, returned in his room, stripped hastily and slipped between cloths. As he had guessed, they were frozen. Nevertheless, he fell asleep almost immediately .

Conjugation

• Verbs of the first group

I aim' ai'
tu aim' as'
il aim' a'
nous aim' âmes'
vous aim' âtes'
ils aim' èrent'

je dorm' is'
tu dorm' is'
il dorm' it'
nous dorm' îmes'
vous dorm' îtes'
ils dorm' irent'

I cour' us'
you cour' us'
il cour' ut'
nous cour' ûmes'
vous cour' ûtes'
ils cour' urent'

I wines
tu wines
il came
nous came
vous came
ils came

• the auxiliary " être":

I fu'
tu fu'
il fu' you
nous fû my
vous fû your
ils fu' rent'

• the auxiliary " avoir":

I eu'
tu eu'
il eu' you
nous have my
vous have your
ils eu' rent'

The disappearance of the preterit

Nowadays the preterit practically disappeared from the current spoken language; the reason is due to the irregularity of its conjugation: “he sang”, “he finishes”, “he believed”, “he came”; and how much people know that the preterit of the verb “to sew” is “it bent”? The patois of languages of oil solved the difficulty by generalizing the form in “- it”, as recalled by a well-known account, the “History of the dog of Brisquet”, of Charles Nodier; it ends in the quotation of an expression in speaking country:

“Malheureux like the dog with Brisquet, which allit only once with the wood, and which the wolf mangit”.

Only, as the punished language did not accept this evolution, the current language preferred to give up the preterit with the profit of the composed past, thus separating French from the other languages Romance and making disappear an invaluable nuance: “When I arrived at Paris…” (I am there still) and “When I arrived at Paris” (it is possible that I would not be there any more). Moreover, the maintenance of the preterit in the written language with literary intention had as a consequence its disappearance with the first and second people who are employed very little there.

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