Hesternal tense

{{Short description|Grammatical tense indicating "yesterday"}} A '''hesternal tense''' (abbreviated {{sc|'''hest'''}}) is a past tense for the previous day. (''Hesterno die'' is Latin for 'yesterday'.)<ref>Cicero, ''In Catilinam II''; Catullus, 50; Augustine, Sermon 4.</ref>

Hesternal tense refers to an event which occurred yesterday (in an absolute tense system) or on the preceding day (in a relative tense system). A '''pre-hesternal''' tense refers to an event which occurred prior to yesterday or the previous day. Hesternal tense is reported, for example in the Fyam or Fyem language of northern Nigeria.<ref>Daniel Nettle, ''The Fyem Language of Northern Nigeria'', LINCOM Europa 1998</ref>

Hesternal tense may also be used to denote a tense for any time prior to the current day – that is, to mean pre-hodiernal.<ref>Earl W. Stevick, ''Adapting and writing language lessons'', U.S. Foreign Service Institute, 1971, p. 302.</ref>

==References== {{reflist}} {{Wiktionary|hesternal}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hesternal Tense}} Category:Grammatical tenses