passeform

Passeform is a term used in linguistics and language design to denote a grammatical form that encodes a completed past action. It is not a universally recognized category; rather, it appears in discussions of tense–aspect systems, particularly in cross-linguistic surveys and in the design of constructed languages. The name combines the French word passe, meaning past, with form, signaling its proposed function.

In descriptions, a passeform marks a completed action in past time, often overlapping with the perfective aspect. Its exact temporal and modal interpretation can vary by language: in some accounts it behaves like a simple past; in others it aligns with a perfect or pluperfect meaning depending on the accompanying auxiliary or context. Morphological realization is flexible, appearing as affixes, clitics, particles, or as a fixed word order pattern, depending on the language’s typology.

Typologically, the passeform is used mainly in theoretical discussions and is more common in analyses of constructed languages or pedagogical grammars than in natural languages as a separate, widely used category. In natural language descriptions, the same functions are typically expressed through established categories such as past tense, perfective aspect, or composite tenses, sometimes with language-specific distinctions.

See also: tense, aspect, mood, perfective, past tense, perfect.