Remember that there are three types of verbs based on their last vowel in the dictionary form: a-verbs, e-verbs, and и-verbs, i.e. those ending in a, e, and и, respectively, in the form found in the dictionary. Remember also that based on their aspect, there are two types of verbs: imperfective and perfective. In forming the past tenses, three questions need to be kept in mind:
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- what is the aspect of the verb,
- whether the last vowel of the dictionary form changes (and if so, to what), and
- what the endings are.
The aorist (минато определено свршено време - МОС) is the second past tense you will learn about. It is made from perfective verbs. In this tutorial, you learn about a subgroup of perfective verbs that end in и in the dictionary, for which the и does not change. To make the aorist, the following endings are added
- јас -в
- ти, тој, таа, тоа -
- ние -вме
- вие -вте
- тие -а
where the - represents the dictionary form.
Note that when the the third person plural ending -a is added to the verb ending in -и, the spelling rule that adds a 'j' between all 'иа' vowel combinations is enforced. For example, се вратив 'I came back' but се вратија 'they came back.'