Editing Bulgarian language (section)

====Tense====
There are three grammatically distinctive positions in time – present, past and future – which combine with aspect and mood to produce a number of formations. Normally, in grammar books these formations are viewed as separate tenses – i. e. "past imperfect" would mean that the verb is in past tense, in the imperfective aspect, and in the indicative mood (since no other mood is shown). There are more than 40 different tenses across Bulgarian's two aspects and five  moods.

In the indicative mood, there are three simple tenses:
*''Present tense'' is a temporally unmarked simple form made up of the verbal stem and a complex suffix composed of the [[thematic vowel]] {{IPA|/ɛ/}}, {{IPA|/i/}} or {{IPA|/a/}} and the person/number ending ({{lang|bg|пристигам}}, {{IPA|/priˈstigɐm/}}, "I arrive/I am arriving"); only imperfective verbs can stand in the present indicative tense independently;
*''Past imperfect'' is a simple verb form used to express an action which is contemporaneous or subordinate to other past actions; it is made up of an imperfective or a perfective verbal stem and the person/number ending ({{lang|bg|пристигах}} {{IPA|/priˈstiɡɐx/}}, {{lang|bg|пристигнех}} {{IPA|/priˈstiɡnɛx/}}, 'I was arriving');
*''Past aorist'' is a simple form used to express a temporarily independent, specific past action; it is made up of a perfective or an imperfective verbal stem and the person/number ending ({{lang|bg|пристигнах}}, {{IPA|/priˈstiɡnɐx/}}, 'I arrived', {{lang|bg|четох}}, {{IPA|/ˈtʃɛtox/}}, 'I read');

In the indicative there are also the following compound tenses:
*''Future tense'' is a compound form made of the particle {{lang|bg|ще}} {{IPA|/ʃtɛ/}} and present tense ({{lang|bg|ще уча}} {{IPA|/ʃtɛ ˈutʃɐ/}}, 'I will study'); negation is expressed by the construction {{lang|bg|няма да}} {{IPA|/ˈɲamɐ dɐ/}} and present tense ({{lang|bg|няма да уча}} {{IPA|/ˈɲamɐ dɐ ˈutʃɐ/}}, or the old-fashioned form {{lang|bg|не ще уча}}, {{IPA|/nɛ ʃtɛ ˈutʃɐ/}} 'I will not study');
*''Past future tense'' is a compound form used to express an action which was to be completed in the past but was future as regards another past action; it is made up of the past imperfect of the verb {{lang|bg|ща}} {{IPA|/ʃtɤ/}} ('will'), the particle {{lang|bg|да}} {{IPA|/dɐ/}} ('to') and the present tense of the verb (e.g. {{lang|bg|щях да уча}}, {{IPA|/ʃtʲax dɐ ˈutʃɐ/}}, 'I was going to study');
*''Present perfect'' is a compound form used to express an action which was completed in the past but is relevant for or related to the present; it is made up of the present tense of the verb съм {{IPA|/sɤm/}} ('be') and the past participle (e.g. {{lang|bg|съм учил}} {{IPA|/sɤm ˈutʃiɫ/}}, 'I have studied');
*''Past perfect'' is a compound form used to express an action which was completed in the past and is relative to another past action; it is made up of the past tense of the verb съм and the past participle (e.g. {{lang|bg|бях учил}} {{IPA|/bʲax ˈutʃiɫ/}}, 'I had studied');
*''Future perfect'' is a compound form used to express an action which is to take place in the future before another future action; it is made up of the future tense of the verb съм and the past participle (e.g. {{lang|bg|ще съм учил}} {{IPA|/ʃtɛ sɐm ˈutʃiɫ/}}, 'I will have studied');
*''Past future perfect'' is a compound form used to express a past action which is future with respect to a past action which itself is prior to another past action; it is made up of the past imperfect of {{lang|bg|ща}}, the particle {{lang|bg|да}} the present tense of the verb съм and the past participle of the verb (e.g. {{lang|bg|щях да съм учил}}, {{IPA|/ʃtʲax dɐ sɐm ˈutʃiɫ/}}, 'I would have studied').

The four perfect constructions above can vary in aspect depending on the aspect of the main-verb participle; they are in fact pairs of imperfective and perfective aspects. Verbs in forms using past participles also vary in voice and gender.

There is only one simple tense in the [[imperative mood]], the present, and there are simple forms only for the second-person singular, -и/-й (-i, -y/i), and plural, -ете/-йте (-ete, -yte), e.g. уча {{IPA|/ˈutʃɐ/}} ('to study'): {{lang|bg|уч'''и'''}} {{IPA|/oˈtʃi/}}, sg., {{lang|bg|уч'''ете'''}} {{IPA|/oˈtʃɛtɛ/}}, pl.; {{lang|bg|играя}} {{IPA|/ˈiɡrajɐ/}} 'to play': {{lang|bg|игра'''й'''}} {{IPA|/iɡˈraj/}}, {{lang|bg|игра'''йте'''}} {{IPA|/iɡˈrajtɛ/}}. There are compound imperative forms for all persons and numbers in the present compound imperative ({{lang|bg|да играе}}, {{IPA|da iɡˈrae/}}), the present perfect compound imperative ({{lang|bg|да е играл}}, {{IPA|/dɐ ɛ iɡˈraɫ/}}) and the rarely used present pluperfect compound imperative ({{lang|bg|да е бил играл}}, {{IPA|/dɐ ɛ bil iɡˈraɫ/}}).

The [[conditional mood]] consists of five compound tenses, most of which are not grammatically distinguishable. The present, future and past conditional use a special past form of the stem би- (bi – "be") and the past participle ({{lang|bg|бих учил}}, {{IPA|/bix ˈutʃiɫ/}}, 'I would study'). The past future conditional and the past future perfect conditional coincide in form with the respective indicative tenses.

The [[subjunctive mood]] is rarely documented as a separate verb form in Bulgarian, (being, morphologically, a sub-instance of the quasi-[[infinitive]] construction with the particle да and a normal finite verb form), but nevertheless it is used regularly. The most common form, often mistaken for the present tense, is the present subjunctive ({{lang|bg|[по-добре] да отида}} {{IPA|(ˈpɔdobrɛ) dɐ oˈtidɐ/}}, 'I had better go'). The difference between the present indicative and the present subjunctive tense is that the subjunctive can be formed by ''both'' perfective and imperfective verbs. It has completely replaced the infinitive and the supine from complex expressions (see below). It is also employed to express opinion about ''possible'' future events. The past perfect subjunctive ({{lang|bg|[по добре] да бях отишъл}} {{IPA|(ˈpɔdobrɛ) dɐ bʲax oˈtiʃɐl/}}, 'I'd had better be gone') refers to ''possible'' events in the past, which ''did not'' take place, and the present pluperfect subjunctive ({{lang|bg|да съм бил отишъл}} {{IPA|/dɐ sɐm bil oˈtiʃɐl/}}), which may be used about both past and future events arousing feelings of incontinence,{{clarify|date=May 2019}}<!-- inability to control one's bodily functions?--> suspicion, etc.

The [[grammatical mood|inferential mood]] has five pure tenses. Two of them are simple – ''past aorist inferential'' and ''past imperfect inferential'' – and are formed by the past participles of perfective and imperfective verbs, respectively. There are also three compound tenses – ''past future inferential'', ''past future perfect inferential'' and ''past perfect inferential''. All these tenses' forms are gender-specific in the singular. There are also conditional and compound-imperative crossovers. The existence of inferential forms has been attributed to Turkic influences by most Bulgarian linguists.{{citation needed|date=August 2015}}<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bubenik|first=Vit|date=August 1995|title=Development of Aspect from Ancient Slavic to Bulgaro-Macedonian|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DapxAAAAQBAJ|journal=Historical Linguistics 1995|volume=1|pages=29|isbn=9789027283986|via=Google Books}}</ref> Morphologically, they are derived from the [[#Tense|perfect]].