State of being and the word こと

Question

I have 2 questions:

1. When I put a verb in the past does it already carry the state of being? For instance, the quote 私は疲れますです。First, です translates like "am", right? Now if I wanted to put this sentence in the past, which would be the more appropriated way?

私は疲れました (putting the verb in the past, do I already carry the state of being and exclude the need of です?)

私は疲れましたです or even

私は疲れますでした

?

2. Now regarding the こと I understand I kinda give direction to who the sentence is about but my question is if taking it out of the sentence will make it lose sense or if they use it in certain occasions or even if it's just what's more common overall, I'd like to use the following sentence as an example:

私はあなたが好き

私はあなたのことが好き

What's the difference?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I think you are overthinking the function of です.

「疲れますです」, 「疲れましたです」, and 「疲れますでした」are all ungrammatical entirely. You can't use です or でした after a verb, only after an adjective or noun.

です is used to equate the subject/topic to a noun or adjective, but not a verb. Thus, you can use it to say something like "I am sad", but not "I am crying":

○ 私は悲しいです
× 私は泣くです

So your two grammatically correct options are:

私は疲れました
私は疲れます

The former meaning "I got tired", and the latter "I will get tired". It's that straightforward--if you want it in the past, use the past form; if you want it in the present or future, use the present form.

Things do get a little tricky with some change-of-state verbs like 疲れる (see also this). If you want to emphasize you're tired now, you have a third option using -ている:

私は疲れています

However, this is a topic separate from the goal of this question.

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As for your other question, it already has an answer here.

Ironically, though, in the sentences you gave you actually need a です for it to be grammatical since 好き is a na-adjective:

○ 私はあなた(のこと)が好きです