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in English: perfect and progressive (continuous). Verbs that do not have
aspect marked on them are said to have simple aspect.
The perfect aspect most often describes events or states taking place during
a preceding period of time. The progressive aspect describes an event or
state of affairs in progress or continuing. Perfect and progressive aspect can
be combined with either present or past tense
2. PAST TENSES
The past tense is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to place
an action or situation in past time. In languages which have a past tense, it
thus provides a grammatical means of indicating that the event being
referred to took place in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense
include the English verbs sang, went and was.
In English, the past tense (or preterite) is one of the inflected forms of a verb.
The past tense of regular verbs is made by adding -d or -ed to the base form
of the verb, while those of irregular verbs are formed in various different
ways (such as seesaw, gowent,bewas/were). With regular and some
irregular verbs, the past tense form also serves as a past participle.
Various
multi-word
constructions
exist
for
combining
past
tense
copied.
Irregular verbs do not form the past tense with ed, e.g. go went
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We use the past simple for sequences of actions. Sometimes the actions
follow immediately after each other, or one action causes a result:
Silverman ran to the car, jumped and raced off into the night (SEQUENCE)
Wall Street traders lost a fortune when the Asian markets collapsed (=
traders lost forutne because the markets collapsed)
We use the past simple to describe states in the past:
We lived just outside Oxford in the 90s, but we didn't have a car.
2.2. PAST CONTINUOUS
We form the past continuous with was or were and the present participle of
the main verb:
What were the children doing while all this was going on
AFFIRMATIVE: I was working
NEGATIVE: I was not working (negative contractions:wasn't)
QUESTIONS: was I working?
There are a number of verbs in English which we rarerly use in a continuous
tense. They often describe states of being, thinking, possessing or feeling:
Most people aren't believing in the existance of UFOs
Most people
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We didn't hear the intruder because we were sleeping on the top floor that
night
We often use the past continuous to show that a past action was temporary,
or was changing or developing:
During my training I was earning a lot less than my wife ( a temporary
situation)
His symptoms were becoming more pronounced each day ( a changing
situation)
Past continuous can be used to describe an action whch forms a background
or setting to past events:
Darkness was descending over the hushed city as James staggered back
to college.
We can use the past continuous for two actions in progress at the same time
in the past:
We were watching the sky and listening for the first sounds of the dawn
chorus.
We use the past continuous to contrast an ongoing action with a single event
which interrupts it. We use the past simple for the single event:
Elizabeth was hunting when messenger arrived with the news of Mary's plot.
We can use the past continuous tense to describe past arrangements; the
arranged event may or may not have taken place
Nancy was taking the next flight to Paris so she had to cut short the
interview.
We can make requests, suggestions and questions more tentative and polite
by using the past continuous. We often use the verbs think and wonder:
I was talking to Tom the other day
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The past continuous here gives the impression that the action was in no way
unusual or remarkable. It also tends to remove responsibility from the
subject. In the example it is not clear who started the conversation, and it
does not matter. In a contrast with the same sentence expressed in the
simple past:
I talked to Tom the other day
In the example it is clear who took the initiative
2.3. PAST PERFECT
We form the past perfect with had and a past participle, which is the same
for all persons.
By the end of the fourth day we had exhausted most of our rations
AFFIRMATIVE: I had / I'd worked.
NEGATIVE: I had not /I hadn't worked.
QUESTIONS: had I worked?
Regular verbs have a past participle form which is the same as the past
tense form
USE
We use the past perfect to describe an action which is copmpleted before a
time in the past. We can include a specific time reference:
By the time the UN task force arrived, the rebel forces had taken the
province
It can also be used for repeated actions:
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The new owners found that the timbers had been patched up several
times
We can use the past perfect to make a sequence of events clear. We use the
past perfect for the earlier action and the past simple for the later:
When we got back the babysitter went home (sequence: 1 we got back 2
the babysitter went home)
When we got back the baby sitter had gone home (sequence: 1 the
babysitter went home, 2 we got back)
We can use just or already with the past perfect to show that the earlier
action was recent or earlier than expected:
We wanted to talk to the babysitter but she'd just left
When we got back we found that babysitter had already gone home
We use the past perfect with verbs such as hope, expect, want, plan, think
about, wish to describe past intetions which were unfulfilled:
They had hoped to get to the summit but Travers fell ill at the base camp.
2.4. PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS
The past perfect continuous tense is formed with had been and the present
participle
The lake was near bursting point as it had been raining heavily for weeks.
AFFIRMATIVE: I had / I'd been working.
NEGATIVE: they had not been working
QUESTIONS: had you not been working?
USE
The past perfect contnuous is used to describe an ongoing situation or action
which continued up to, or stopped, just before a time in the past:
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He had been working for over an hour before the auditors turned up.
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Used to + infinitive is not the same as be/get used (+ verb ing) which
means 'be / become accostumed to':
I used to live alone (=i lived alone at a time in the past)
He wasn't used to living on his own (=he wasn't accostumed to it)
USE
Would and used to describe actions which happened regularly in the past but
no longer happen (or vice verse) or now happen with more or less frequency:
They used to get paid every three months (now they get paid weekly)
We would get up early every Sunday to go to the church (we do not now)
To avoid confusion with other uses of would, we usually mention the past
time or situations:
He would give her a lift to work in the days before she passed her test.
To describe past states which have changed we use used to:
Lithuania used to be part of the Soviet Union
There didn't use to be any crime around here in the old days
Would cannot be used for past states:
France would be a monarchy but now it's a republic
3. CONCLUSION
English verbs describe states and actions. This refers only to the ordinary
verbs which can stand on their own unlike the verbs which have the auxiliary
role in a sentence. Verbs in English have only two tense marked on them:
present and past. Verb phrases can either be marked for tense or have a
modal verb, but not both. There are two aspects in English: perfect and
progressive (continuous). Each of the aspects can be combined with present
and past tenses. Perfect aspect points back to an earlier time and usually
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signals that the circumstances, or its result, continued up to a given time.
Progressive or continuous aspect signals an event which has duration.
We often use the past simple tense for single completed events and past
states and we use the past continuous for temporary or interrupted actions.
Past perfect tense is used for actions which happened before a time in the
past. For an ongoing situation up to or just before a time in the past the past
perfect continuous is used and to describe habits in the past would / used to
can be applied.