Italian 5.2. Past Absolute Tense

The past absolute tense is often used in Italian to refer to the distant or remote past. It is often used in reference to past events or narrations. However, since defining a certain past event as distant is something relative, one can use both the present perfect and the past absolute to refer to events that have been completed in the past.

Nevertheless, the past absolute tense cannot be used to refer to past events that have not been completed at the present moment. In this case, we can only use the present perfect. Thus, words such as “già” (already) and “appena” (just) are often not seen in the past absolute tense, but only in the present perfect tense.

In general, the past absolute tense finds more use in the southern part of Italy, whereas the present perfect is more common in other parts of Italy in daily conversation.

Conjugation

We form the stem by removing the final “-are,” “-ere,” or “-ire,” and attaching the conjugation suffix according to the personal pronoun, as shown in the following table: 

Many, but not all, regular verbs in the “-ere” group have an alternative form in the “io,” “lui/lei,” and “loro” forms. These have the endings: “-etti,” “-ette,” and “-ettero,” respectively.

Irregular Verbs

There are many irregular verbs in the past absolute tense in Italian, especially verbs with the “-ere” ending. Note that most of these irregular verbs have regular “tu,” “noi,” and “voi” forms. Here, we list the most common ones:

Notice that the verbs in the list above are all “-ere” verbs except for “dare,” “dire,” “fare,” and “stare.”

The treatment of the verbs “fare” and “dire” as “-ere” verbs can be attributed to the fact that both verbs are derived from the Latin verbs “facere” and “dicere,” respectively.

Examples

Let us examine some examples that use the past absolute tense in Italian:

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