Verbs - Tenses and Phrases

Verbs - Tenses and Phrases

Verbs change form to show tense and to agree with the subject.

• Tense tells when an action takes place.

• Present tense names an action that happens regularly. It can also express a general truth. Example: I walk to school. Jesse rides the bus.

• Past tense names an action that already happened. Example: I rakes the yard yesterday. My brother helped my dad in the fields.

• Future tense names an action that will take place in the future. Example: I will visit my grandparents in November. We shall celebrate Thanksgiving together.

Verbs have four principal parts that are used to form all tenses.

• Base form: jump

• Present participle: jumping

• Past form: jumped

• Past participle: jumped

Participles are often combined with helping verbs to form verb phrases.

• The most common helping verbs are be*, do, and have.

• Forms of be + present participle = am jumping; was jumping

• Forms of have + past participle = have jumped; had jumped

Multiple Choice

We __ learning about archery this year.

• are

• have

Multiple Choice

Slowly but surely champions __ making archery a more popular sport throughout the country.

• are

• had

Multiple Choice

During the last forty years, competitive archery equipment __ changed very little.

• are

• has

Multiple Choice

Many people __ playing in tournaments each year.

• are

• has

Multiple Choice

Archers __ founded the Nation Archery Association in 1879 for annual tournaments.

• was

• had