Verb (Part 2 of 3)

 
 

PAST TENSE/ KỌJA/ TI RE KỌ JA

This tense category falls on what has just happened, elapsed or things that happened in distance past. Something which happened, before the present event or incident took place.[/dropcap]

Examples:

Mo ti lọ ọ                      I had gone (past perfect tense)

Mo lọ                           I went (simple past)

Mo ti ṣee iṣẹ naa           I have (had) done the job.

(Present or past perfect tense; time of the action will determine which tense).

A ti de   tipẹ-tipẹ           We had come back long time ago

Baa’le ile na ti ku             The man is dead.

A ti de                           We have come back (present perfect tense)

O ti   lọ                          He has gone; He left.

In Yoruba, the word “ti” with high tone (macron mark) mostly stands for the past tense.Time of event occurrence will determine the sequence of the tenses.   A Yoruba learner must place more emphasis on tone, which in all cases, dictate the meaning of any spoken word.

 

The third category is the Future tense; tenses which indicate what will happen or be done in a future date.  Again, tone is a determining factor, because a certain grapheme (word) such as homograph which refers to a word that is spelt the same as another word but has a different meaning and pronunciation. With proper sound stress, audience draws inference and then act.
 

The first example in this chart may have two meanings:  (Maa   lọọ) with high tone in Yoruba will mean a command-“Go away”; but, the same sentence with mid-tone will stand for future or conditional tense.

Yoruba tenses overlap, for instance, a past tense in Yoruba can assume or take the role of (past perfect, past-perfect progressing, past progressive and simple past); same thing  goes with present tense, which in most cases can  substitute for (present- perfect, present-perfect progressive, simple present and present-progressive).

Future tenses in Yoruba are no exception, because of the overlapping function, future-perfect, future perfect progressive, simple-future and future progressive take up similar or same role.

 

Moods in Yoruba Verb

Yoruba verbs help establishing the mood of a sentence, specifically, there four types of moods:
 

Indicative
Imperative
Conditional
Subjunctive

Indicative Mood- over 70 percent of Yoruba sentences are indicative, as the name suggest, the sentence highlights fact and question.