What in the world is a Periphrastic <-आस -Asa>?

[jivadas]

What in the world is a Periphrastic <-आस -Asa>? 

The easiest-to.recognize past formation is called "periphrastic", 

which is not.so-easy to remember. 

What in the world is a Periphrastic <.Asa>? It is >Greek <peri-phrasis>, which becomes "peri-phrastic". The Gk <peri> is like Skt. #pari परि and _-phrastic_ refers to a phrase of speech. So I would guess the Skt equivalent तो be parivAda परिवाद. 

But when I look in Kale and other grammars, I get only the Engl>Greek term. What is the saMskRta name?    

And what is its proper use when defining time in a story?

xØx

 jd 

[Hnbhat B.R.]

What do you want by translating English or Greek into Sanskrit? Do you want to learn English or Sanskrit?

I don't understand your question. If you want to understand the English Word, you can refer to the English Dictionaries available in multiple numbers online and offline and its grammar and origin will be given.

Here is the simple explanation for the English/Greek Word used in English as explained in the dictionary it is an adjective:

Roundabout and unnecessarily wordy.

as in

"had a preference for periphrastic rather than forthright expression"; "A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,/ Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle/ With words and meanings."

And you have to learn Greek to know the usage of the word in English.

Now to learn its usage in Sanskrit, the word is not used in English nor its translated word as you have given. But please learn to use the Grammar texts in the proper way how they have designed it.That would be benificiary.

[Harry Spier]

You might be refering to what is called the "periphrastic future" in Whitney's  Sanskrit grammar section 942- 944 or Coulson's  Teach Yourself Sanskrit page 167.
Quoting Coulson:

[Periphrastic future .... the use of the agent noun to form a comparatively rare tense known as the periphrastic future. ...The agent noun is used predicatively to refer to future time, with the verb "as" in the first and second persons, without in the third person:...

Coulson gives the examples: kartāsmi 'I am to do', kartā 'he/she is to do'   kartā smaḥ   'we are to do'...
He also says: "The tense is used especially for events fixed for a particular future time: often, in fact, the verb is accompanied by an adverb of time. Thus 

śva āgantā  "he is to come tomorrow".

Harry Spier

[Hnbhat B.R.]

Here the Sanskrit Term use लुट् in Sanskrit Grammar texts explained using the phrase  "periphrastic future" in English for the tense:

 

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[Hnbhat B.R.]

Probably the member Jivadas is not asking about the phrases either periphrastic future or periphrastic past, but is reflecting the following comment about the use of "periphrastic" only for these tenses conveyed by the above by Mr. Kale and other grammar books he has seen:

http://all-about-sanskrit.blogspot.in/2013/06/sanskrit-grammar-periphrastic-perfect.html

Here is the explanation of the word Periphrastic in Grammar:

http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/periphrasticterm.htm