Past tense

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see past tense (disambiguation) A past tense (abbreviated PST) is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment (in an absolute tense system), or prior to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future (in a relative tense system).[1] Not all languages mark verbs for the past tense (Mandarin Chinese, for example, does not); in some languages, the grammatical expression of tense is mixed with the expression of mood and/or aspect (see Tense-aspect-mood).

In English, there are two verb forms which are commonly called "past tense", the so-called simple past, sometimes misleadingly called the preterite, which is a true tense, and the present perfect, which is generally considered an aspect rather than a tense.[1][2] These combine with other aspects including the progressive (continuous) aspect to create several additional forms: Simple past is formed for regular verbs by adding -d or ed to the root of a word. Examples: He walked to the store, or They danced all night.. A negation is produced by adding did not and the verb in its infinitive form. Example: He did not walk to the store. Question sentences are started with did as in Did he walk to the store? Simple past is used for describing acts that have already been concluded and whose exact time of occurrence is known. Furthermore, simple past is used for retelling successive events. That is why it is commonly used in storytelling. Past progressive is formed by using the adequate form of to be and the verbs present participle: He was going to church. By inserting not before the main verb a negation is achieved. Example: He was not going to church. A question is formed by prefixing the adequate form of to be as in Was he going?. Past progressive is used for describing events that were in the process of occurring when a new event happened. The already occurring event is presented in past progressive, the new one in simple past. Example: We were sitting in the garden when the thunderstorm started. Use is similar to other languages' imperfect. Present perfect is formed by combining have/has with the main verbs past participle form: I have arrived. A negation is produced by inserting not after have/has: I have not arrived. Questions in present perfect are formulated by starting a sentence with have/has: Has she arrived? Present perfect is used for describing a past actions effect on the present: He has arrived. Now he is here. This holds true for events that have just been concluded as well as for events that have not yet occurred.

Present perfect progressive is formed by prefixing have/has before the grammatical participle been and the verbs present participial form: We have been waiting. A negation is expressed by including not between have/has and been: They have not been eating. As with present perfect simple, for forming a question, have/has is put at the beginning of a sentence: Have they been eating? Present perfect progressive is used for describing an event that has been going on until the present and may be continued in the future. It also puts emphasis on how an event has occurred. Very often since and for mark the use of present perfect progressive: I have been waiting for five hours / I have been waiting since three oclock. Furthermore, there is another version of past tense possible: past perfect, similar to other languages' pluperfect. Past perfect is formed by combining the simple past form of to have with the past participle form of the main verb: We had shouted. A negation is achieved by including not after had: You had not spoken. Questions in past perfect always start with had: Had he laughed? Past perfect is used for describing secluded events that have occurred before something else followed. The event that is closer to the present is given in simple past tense: After we had visited our relatives in New York, we flew back to Toronto. Past perfect progressive is formed by had, the grammatical particle been and the present participle of the main verb: You had been waiting. For negation, not is included before been: I had not been waiting. A question sentence is formed by starting with had: Had she been waiting? If emphasis is put on the duration of a concluded action of the past, since and for are signal words for past perfect progressive: We had been waiting at the airport since the 9 P.M. flight. / They had been waiting for three hours now.

Present tense
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see Present tense (disambiguation). And present tense (abbreviated PRES or PRS) is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time.[1] In English, the present may be used to express action in the present, a current state of being, an occurrence in the future, or an action that started in the past and continues. There are two common types of present tense in most Indo-European languages: the present indicative (i.e., the combination of present tense and indicative mood) and the present subjunctive (i.e., the combination of present tense and subjunctive mood).

[edit] English
The English present tense can be combined with aspects in the following verbal constructions:

present simple or simple present, which is used in several ways:

to describe both habits and or routines (habitual aspect) (I eat breakfast every morning at 6:30. I go to work every day.), and general facts or the truth (The earth revolves around the sun.); to present thoughts, feelings, and other unchanging states (stative aspect) (I think so. I like it. It is hot. The sun always shines in the desert.); to indicate scheduled events in the near future (so that the simple present verb form actually indicates future tense) (I take the train tomorrow at 6:00.); to indicate events at any time in the future in a dependent clause (Ill retire when I reach age 65.); to provide narratives such as instructional narratives (Now I mix the ingredients; now I put the pan in the oven.).

In the present simple, English uses the verb without an ending (I get the lunch ready at one oclock, usually.) except that in the third person singular, (after he, she, it, your friend, etc.) the suffix -s or -es is appended to the verb (It gets busy on the weekends. Sarah catches the early train.). The present simple tense is often used with adverbs of repeated time, as in these examples with the adverbs shown in italics:

I never come to school by cycle. He always forgets to do his homework. I never catch the late bus home.

emphatic present: The present tense can be expressed with emphasis by using the auxiliary verb do and the uninflected main verb, (I do walk., He does walk.). present progressive or present continuous, which is used to describe events happening now, e.g., I am reading this wiki article, and I am thinking about editing it. This tense is formed by combining the present form of the verb to be with a present participle; present perfect, which in English is a present tense with retrospective aspect (I have visited Paris several times. describes a present state of being based on past action; I have listened to you for five minutes now.); present perfect progressive, which is used to describe events or actions that have begun at some point in the past and continue through the present, e.g., I have been reading this article for some time now.

Future tense
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see Future tense (disambiguation). In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated FUT) is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future (in an absolute tense system), or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future (in a relative tense system).

[edit] Expressions of future tense

The concept of the future, necessarily uncertain and at varying distances ahead, means that the speaker may express the future in terms of probability or intent ; the modality of intention is usually but not always present when a future construction is used.[1]:pp. 105-106 Whether future expression is realis or irrealis depends not on any objective, ontological notion of future reality, but rather on the speaker's conviction that the predicted event will at some future moment constitute reality.[2]:p.20 Languages can employ various strategies to convey future tense meaning. The auxiliary+verb sequence can eventually become combined into a single word form, leading to reanalysis as a

simple (one-word) future tense. This is in fact the origin of the future tense in Western Romance languages like Italian (see below). This process can also go in the other direction.[3] In some languages, there is no special morphological or syntactic indication of future tense, and future meaning is supplied by the context, for example by the use of temporal adverbs like "later", "next year", etc. Such adverbs (in particular words meaning "tomorrow" and "then") can also develop into grammaticalized future tense markers. A given language can exhibit more than one strategy for expressing future tense. In addition, the verb forms used for the future tense can also be used to express other types of meaning. For example, the auxiliary werden "become" is used for both the future tense and the passive voice in German.

[edit] English
[edit] Main forms of future implication The most common auxiliary verbs used to express futurity are will and shall. Prescriptive grammarians distinguish between these, preferring to express the simple future as will in the second and third persons and shall in the first person, and preferring to express obligation or determination in the opposite cases. However, in modern English worldwide, shall and will are generally used interchangeably,[4] with will being more common. See also shall and will. Other periphrastic forms for the future include:

to be going to + Verb, e.g. John is going to leave tonight. to be to + Verb, e.g. John is to leave tonight, which with the zero copula of newspaper headline style becomes simply to + Verb, e.g. John to leave tonight.

A periphrastic form for the immediate future is

to be about to + Verb, e.g. John is about to leave (any minute).

A dialectical form in Northern England is:

mun, derived from Old Norse, which implies obligation.

In all dialects of spoken English, shall and will are commonly elided into 'll (I'll go could be either "I will go" or "I shall go") so that the differences between the two have been worn down. English also uses must, should, can, may and might in a similar way:

Must expresses the highest degree of obligation and commitment (I / you must go) and is temporally nearest to present time in its expression of futurity ("I must go now.") Should (the subjunctive form of shall in this context) implies obligation or commitment to the action contemplated.

Can implies the ability to commit the action but does not presuppose obligation or firm commitment to the action. May expresses a relatively low sense of commitment (I may go) and is the most permissive (You may go); it can also suggest conditionality (I may go [if I have time] ). Might expresses a very low sense of commitment or obligation (I / you might go if I / you feel like it).

[edit] Summary of forms

I will/shall go I'm going to go / I am going to go I'm to go / I am to go I'm about to go / I am about to go I must go I should go I can go I may go I might go

To express futurity in the negative, a negative adverb such as not or never is inserted before the main verb (or the suffix -n't is added to the auxiliary), as in all other auxiliary constructions:

I will/shall not go.....I won't/shan't go.....Will/shall I not go?.....Won't/shan't I go? He's not going to go / He is not going to go.....Is he not going to go?.....Isn't he going to go? He's not to go / He is not to go.....Is he not to go?.....Isn't he to go? He's not about to go / He is not about to go.....Is he not about to go?.....Isn't he about to go? I must not go.....I mustn't go.....Must I not go?.....Mustn't I go? I should not go.....I shouldn't go.....Should I not go?.....Shouldn't I go? I cannot go (cannot is conventional rather than can not).....I can't go.....Can I not go?.....Can't I go? He may never go.....May he never go? I might not go.....I mightn't go.....Might I not go?.....Mightn't I go?

In all of these, action within a future range of time is contemplated. However, in all cases, the sentences are actually voiced in the present tense, since there is no proper future tense in English. It is the implication of futurity that makes these present tense auxiliary constructions amount to a compound future quasi-tense.

[edit] Imminence versus non-imminence The construction am/is/are going to + VERB (and its shortened form am/is/are gonna + VERB) can either imply or fail to imply imminence of the action,[2] and the intended

implication must be decided from the context. For example, It's going to rain would be interpreted as implying imminence, whereas I'm going to visit Paris someday would not. Therefore, the forms am/is/are going to + VERB and will + VERB cannot be conceptually distinguished on the basis of degree of imminence. [edit] Relation among tense, aspect, and modality implications of "will" and "going to" Main article: Tense-aspect-mood Am/is/are going to + VERB always, and will + VERB usually, imply not just futurity but also aspect (the way an action or state takes place in time) and/or modality (the attitude of the speaker toward the action or state).[2][5] The precise interpretation must be based on the context. Specifically:

am/is/are going to + VERB sometimes implies intentional modality, as in I'm going to do that; but sometimes it does not, as in It's going to rain. am/is/are going to + VERB always implies prospective aspect, combining the present focus in the main verb am/is/are going with the futurity of the second verb. Thus, for example, It's going to rain combines a present viewpoint of the situation with a description of the future. This feature is analogous to the retrospective aspect of the English present perfect have/has + VERB + -ed, in which past action is presented from the viewpoint of the present. will + VERB can express aspect alone, without implying futurity: In He will make mistakes, won't he?, the reference is to a tendency in the past, present, and future and as such expresses habitual aspect. will + VERB can express either of two types of modality alone, again without implying futurity: In That will be John at the door, there is an implication of present time and probabilistic mode, while You will do it right now implies obligatory mode. will + VERB can express both intentional modality and futurity, as in I will do it. will + VERB" can express both conditional modality and futurity, as in[2]:p. 92 Don't sit on that rockit'll fall! will + VERB can express futurity without modality: The sun will die in a few billion years.

[edit] Further aspect/tense constructions implying futurity Additional auxiliary constructions used to express futurity in combination with the aspects perfect, habitual, and/or continuous are labelled as follows: Future Continuous: Auxiliary + Verb Stem + Present Participle

I shall/will be going You will be singing He will be sleeping

We may be coming They may be travelling It will be snowing when Nancy arrives It will not be raining when Josie leaves

Future Perfect: Auxiliary + Verb Stem + Past Participle

I shall/will be gone You will have sung He will have slept We may have come (We may be come can still be used poetically, but it is obsolete in speech) They may have travelled It will have snowed It will not have rained; It won't have rained

Future Perfect Habitual (or Future Perfect Continuous): Auxiliary + Verb Stem + Past Participle + Present Participle

I shall/will have been going You will have been singing He will have been sleeping We may have been coming They may have been travelling It will have been snowing It will not have been raining

[edit] Futurity from a past perspective The time of perspective of the English future can be shifted from the present to the past by replacing will with its past tense form would, thus effectively creating a "future of the past" construction in which the indicated event or situation occurs after the past time of perspective: In 1982, I knew that I would graduate in 1986.