Tenses

CONCEPT OF TIME IN

ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

Lecture : 04

TENSES.

▪ Tenses are changes or additions to verbs to show when the action took place: in the

past, present, or future.

▪ The phrase verb tense is also used for grammatical aspects, which add more details

about the duration or time an action takes.

▪ When you combine the four grammatical aspects with the past, present and future, you

end up with twelve main verb tenses in English.

▪ Verb tenses show when an action took place. The main verb tenses are the past, present,

and future.

▪ There are also additional aspects that give extra details, such as the length of time the

action occurred, which actions happened first, or whether a past action has an impact
on the present. These grammatical aspects are the simple tense, perfect tense,
continuous tense, and perfect continuous tense.

▪ The standard tense in English is the present tense, which is usually just the root form of

the verb. The past and future tenses often require changes or additions to the root form,
such as the suffix –ed for the past tense and the modal verb will for the future.

SIMPLE TENSE

▪ The simple tense is a grammatical aspect that refers to the normal forms of the past, present,

and future tenses.

PRESENT SIMPLE TENSE

▪ We use the simple present tense when an action is happening right now, or when it

happens regularly (or unceasingly, which is why it’s sometimes called present
indefinite).

▪ Depending on the person, the simple present tense is formed by using the root

form or by adding s or es to the end.

▪ I feel great!

▪ Pauline loves pie.

▪ Hamsters run all night.

▪ The formula for making a simple present verb negative is Subj + do/does + not + [root form of

verb]. You can also use the contraction don’t or doesn’t instead of do not or does not.

▪ Pauline does not want to share the pie.

▪ She doesn’t think there is enough to go around.

▪ The formula for asking a question in the simple present is do/does + [subject] + [root form of

verb].

▪ Do you know how to bake a pie?

▪ How much does Pauline love pie?
PAST SIMPLE TENSE

▪ The simple past is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that happened or

existed before now. Imagine someone asks you what your brother Wolfgang did while
he was in town last weekend.

▪ Wolfgang entered a hula hoop contest.

▪ Subj + 2ndform of verb+ Obj.

▪ Sub+ was/were+ 3rdVerb+ Obj.

▪ Did+ subj+ 1stverb+ Obj

Future Simple Tense

S + will+ 1st verb + obj
Will+ S+ 1st verb + obj
Wont+ S+ 1st verb qp

PROGRESSIVE TENSE

PERFECT TENSE.

▪ Perfect tense is a category of verb tense used to describe completed actions.

PERFECT PROGRESSIVE