The Pluperfect (Mai mult ca perfectul) in Romanian
The Pluperfect (Mai mult ca perfectul: -seram, -seși, -se)
Unlike other Romance languages which use auxiliary compounds, Romanian forms the pluperfect synthetically (-sem, -seși, -se, -serăm, -serăți, -seră) for actions prior to other past events.
The *Pluperfect (Mai mult ca perfectul) in Romanian expresses a past action that was fully completed prior to another reference point in the past (equivalent to English had done, French plus-que-parfait, or Spanish pluscuamperfecto*).
A Unique Synthetic Structure in Romance: While all Western Romance languages form the pluperfect analytically with an auxiliary (e.g. French j'avais lu, Italian avevo letto, Spanish había leído), Romanian uniquely preserves a synthetic single-word morphological pluperfect built from the perfect/participle stem plus the characteristic infix -se-:
Conjugation Pattern: - 1st sg.: -sem (citisem* = I had read, făcusem = I had done, văzusem = I had seen) - 2nd sg.: -seși (citiseși, făcuseși) - 3rd sg.: -se (citise = he/she had read, făcuse, văzuse) - 1st pl.: -serăm (citiserăm = we had read) - 2nd pl.: -serăți (citiserăți) - 3rd pl.: -seră (citiseră* = they had read).
Pluperfect of 'a fi' (to be): fusesem, fuseseși, fusese, fuseserăm, fuseserăți, fuseseră.
Syntactic Usage: Când a sosit trenul, noi deja cumpăraserăm biletele (When the train arrived, we had already bought the tickets).
Examples
Când au sosit oaspeții, noi deja pregătiserăm masa festivă în sufragerie.
When the guests arrived, we had already prepared the festive table in the dining room.
Mihai terminase toate rapoartele înainte ca directorul să le ceară.
Mihai had finished all the reports before the director asked for them.
Noi mai văzuserăm acel film premiat cu mulți ani în urmă la cinematograf.
We had already seen that award-winning movie many years ago at the cinema.
Profesorul citise deja cartea rară înainte de începerea noului semestru.
The professor had already read the rare book before the start of the new semester.
Related terms
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