Language/Tamil/Grammar/Past-tense

VERBS - PAST TENSE

The following chart shows how to put verbs into the past tense, based on their verb class.

From this lesson forward, an attempt will be made to include the verb class number as a superscript to the verb root.

Class	Past Tense
1a	add த் + verb suffix
1b	drop the -ள், then add ண்ட் + verb suffix
1c	drop the -ல், then add ன்ற் + verb suffix
2	add ந்த் + verb suffix
3	add இன் + verb suffix
4	drop the -உ, double the last letter, and add the verb suffix
5	–
6	add த்த் + verb suffix
7	add ந்த் + verb suffix

For future reference, we will need define the past tense stem as the part of the past tense verb before the verb suffix. So for the verbs தடு6 and காத்திரு7, the past tense stems would be தடுத்த்- and காத்திருந்த்-.