Valore modale ‘epistemico-doxastico’ dell’imperfetto in italiano e nelle lingue slave

Abstract

The imperfetto epistemico-doxastico in Italian and the imperfekt na doseštane in Bulgarian refer to the modal usage of the imperfect tense in interrogative sentences when asking for a reminder about information previously known, but forgotten at present. This article has two aims. Firstly, it is illustrated how such modal meaning is displayed in Bulgarian and Italian, two languages where the imperfect tense is fully functioning. Due to the existence of the future past and dedicated narrative verbal forms, in Bulgarian this modal usage of the imperfect shows bigger constraints. Secondly, a comparison with other Slavic languages is made. Whereas in Slavic languages lacking the imperfect tense this meaning cannot be usually conveyed, in Serbian and Croatian some exceptions are observed (the imperfect relic forms beše ‘he/she/it was’ and zvaše ‘he/she/it was called’; the development of a fìxed imperfect marker beše, which is added to verbal forms in the present tense).