The Past Tense
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence · one world map for each value
WALS codes 222 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction”, covers 94 of them (42%); the least frequent, “Present, 4 or more remoteness distinctions”, covers 2.
That value is most frequent in Eurasia (61% of the 66 languages coded there) and least frequent in North America (19% of 31).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Indo-European is the most uniform: 20 of 21 have “Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction”.
Niger-Congo is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 8 of 20.
Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction94 languages · 42%
Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions38 languages · 17%
Present, 4 or more remoteness distinctions2 languages · 1%
No grammatical marking of past/non-past distinction88 languages · 40%
One map per value; each dot is a language WALS codes with that value.
By macro-area
| Value | Africa | Eurasia | Papunesia | Australia | North America | South America |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction | 19 | 40 | 10 | 13 | 6 | 6 |
| Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions | 9 | 4 | 10 | 0 | 8 | 7 |
| Present, 4 or more remoteness distinctions | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| No grammatical marking of past/non-past distinction | 22 | 22 | 20 | 1 | 17 | 6 |
| All values | 50 | 66 | 40 | 14 | 31 | 21 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 23 | No grammatical marking of past/non-past distinction | 70% |
| Indo-European | 21 | Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction | 95% |
| Niger-Congo | 20 | Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions | 40% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 18 | Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction | 67% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 8 | No grammatical marking of past/non-past distinction | 88% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 8 | Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions | 75% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction: English, French, Russian, Finnish, Spanish, Turkish
- Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions: Amele, Supyire, Hixkaryana, Slave, Zulu, Nama
- Present, 4 or more remoteness distinctions: Yagua
- No grammatical marking of past/non-past distinction: Indonesian, Mandarin, Hausa, Tagalog, Malagasy, Greenlandic (West)