Linguistic Anomaly: How Catalan's 'To Go' Verb Forms the Past Tense

A recent online video featuring linguist Oliver from 'Oliver's Oxford' has shed light on a fascinating grammatical anomaly within the Catalan language. In an interview, Oliver explained that while most Romance languages, such as French and Spanish, utilize the verb 'to go' to construct the future tense (e.g., 'Je vais faire' meaning 'I am going to do'), Catalan employs its equivalent verb, 'anar,' to form the past tense. Oliver elaborated on the historical theory behind this unique structure, suggesting it originated from ancient storytelling traditions where past events were narrated in the present tense, with 'to go' indicating a sequence of actions. This linguistic peculiarity, known as 'el passat perifràstic,' has since become the standard way to express past actions in modern Catalan, offering a compelling example of how languages evolve distinctively even within the same family.

ElNacional.cat

21 days ago

Aquest és el secret del català que ni els catalans coneixen: un anglès el revela

Un anglès ha demostrat a TikTok que sap més català que els mateixos catalans