2) While reading the above sentences you must have understood that the verbs in them indicate past tense. The suffix for past tense is –ય. The present tense and future tense forms take person-number suffix according to the subject whereas the past tense verb takes gender-number suffix according to the subject if the verb is intransitive and with object if the verb is transitive. The verb takes past tense suffix and person-number suffix. E.g.

Verb	Past tense	Suffix	Gender-number	Suffix
નાખ	-ય	-ઓ	(Masculine singular)	= નાખ્યો
		-આ	(Masculine plural)	= નાખ્યા
નાખ	-ય	-ઈ	(Feminine singular)	= નાખી
		-ઈ	(Feminine plural)	= નાખી
		(-આં	(Fem.honorific Plural)	= નાખ્યાં)
નાખ	-ય	-ઉં	(Neuter singular)	= નાખ્યું
		-આં	(Neuter plural)	= નાખ્યાં

We will re-read few of the above sentences.

બાળક થોડું ચાલ્યું.	(Intransitive)	(Verb agrees with Subject)
ચોર જેલમાંથી છૂટ્યો.	(Intransitive)	(Verb agrees with Subject)
એણે દોરડું કાપ્યું.	(Transitive)	(Verb agrees with Object)
મેં એમાં થોડું મીઠું નાખ્યું.	(Transitive)	(Verb agrees with Object)

The paradigm for past tense forms is as under:-

	Singular	Plural
Masculin	બોલ્યો	બોલ્યા
Feminine	બોલી	બોલી/બોલ્યાં
Neuter	બોલ્યું	બોલ્યાં

There is another important aspect of past tense is that when the past tense suffix is added the last syllable becomes a cluster e.g. ખ્યું,લ્યો,ચ્યું. (There are many other consonant clusters in Gujarati which will be introduced in the coming chapters.)