0 the tense used to describe actions, events, or states that happened or existed before the present time:
1 relating to the tense used to describe actions, events, or states that happened or existed before the present time:
The first two, however, are preterit, and the last is present.
In particular, preterit forms can occur only on levels 2, 4, and 5 and are concentrated mainly in levels 4 and 5.
Level 3 contains only present tense forms, whereas level 4 has preterit as well as a few present tense forms.
For the younger speakers, however, even a salient form has less chance of occurring with -mosif it is not a preterit.
The overall distribution, then, shows preterit forms mainly on the higher levels of the hierarchy, whereas the present is found mostly on the lower levels.
In other words, the high rate of marking of preterits in comparison to non-preterits is illusory.
Sentences with a verb in the preterit (or the perfect) existentially quantify over a single event, hence the episodic interpretation.
The evidential status of the past perfective forms (preterit) is not clear in the narratives in this study although its uses correspond to foreground events.
