Transcript Verb Tense and Verb Form - Pasco

Pasco-Hernando Community College
Tutorial Series
Verbs
 Verbs are action words: to run, to sit, to speak. Verbs
also describe the state of being: to be (is, are, was,
were), to appear, to become.
Verb Tense
 Verbs relate information about when the action
occurred:
 past (She ran to the store),
 present (She runs in the park), and
 future (She will run on Saturday).
Past Tense
 The simple past tense of regular verbs is formed by
adding -ed to the based form of the verb: plan,
planned; generate, generated.
 However, many verbs are irregular and have an
irregular simple past tense: drive, driven; run, ran; see,
saw.
Present Tense
 Unlike nouns, the third person simple present tense of
singular verbs generally end in the letter -s while the
plural does not: She goes, They go; He decides, They
decide. The first person simple present tense generally
does not end in the letter -s: I go, I see, I decide.
Future Tense
 The future tense is generally formed with the word will
and the simple present base form of a verb: will see,
will decide, will navigate.
 In addition to past, present, and future verb tenses,
there are the progressive and perfect tenses which
describe action that is ongoing or action that is
completed or to be completed before another action.
Progressive Tense
 The progressive tense describes an action that is
ongoing either in the past, present, or future. These
are formed with a helper verb and the present
participle (-ing form) of the verb.
 She was going to the gym at the time of the accident.
 He is explaining how to complete the exercise
 They will be draining the pool to find the leak.
Perfect Tense
 The perfect tense describes an action that was
completed to be completed before another
action. These are formed with a helper verb and the
past participle (-ed form) of the verb.
 She had gone to the gym before the accident occurred.
 He had explained how to complete the exercise before
the students left class.
 They will have drained the pool by the time it rains.
Problems with tense
 Generally, people don't have a problem using the
proper verb tense when they are talking about a single
action. However, sometimes the content of a sentence
can make it difficult to determine proper tense.
Incorrect Shifts in Tense
 Incorrect:
When she goes to the store, she forgot
what she went for.
 This is an illogical shift in tense. The first part is using
the tense for an ongoing situation, but the second part
of the sentence is referring to one past.
 Corrected:
When she goes to the store, she often
forgets what she went for.
 In this case, both goes and forgets are in the same
tense: the present.
Correct Shifts in Tense
 Sometimes, it is correct to use different tenses, but
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only if we really want to indicate different times.
Incorrect:
Last year, I took Humanities I; now, I
took Humanities II.
Even though both verbs are in the same tense, the past
tense, the words Last year and now clearly show a
difference in time.
Corrected:
Last year, I took Humanities I; now, I
am taking Humanities II.
Here, the verb tenses were corrected to reflect the
different times involved.
Verb Form
 Verb form refers to the variety of ways a verb can be
expressed:
 base form of verb - the simplest form of a verb: see, run,
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think
the -s form of the verb - third person present form - She
reads
present participle - the -ing form of a verb
past form of the verb - the past tense
the past participle - generally the same as the past tense
- the -ed form of the verb