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In grammar, tense is a category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.
Tense is the grammaticalisation of time reference, often using three basic categories of:
- “before now”, i.e. the past;
- “now”, i.e. the present;
- and “after now”, i.e. the future.
Verbs designate tense, the time when an action or state of being/condition takes place. All verbs have the characteristic of tense or the time when an action or state of being occurs.
Tense is one of the functions of a verb. Everything that happens (actions or conditions or states), happens:
- in present time,
- in past time,
- or in future time.
A verb indicates the time of an action, a condition, or a state by changing its form. So, when you write and want to show when something occurs, the place to start is with the verb form you use.
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Forms
English has twelve active verb forms.
Tense | PRESENT | PAST | FUTURE |
---|---|---|---|
Simple Tense | |||
Present Simple | Past Simple | Future Simple | |
Use | An action or event that occurs regularly or repeatedly. | An action that ended at a specific point in the past. | An action that will occur after now. |
Formation | Base form of the verb / base form + s | Add –ed | Will + base form of the verb |
Example | laugh/laughs | laughed | will laugh |
Progressive Tense | |||
Use | An action that is happening now. | An action was happening (past progressive) when another action happened (simple past). | An action that will be happening over time, in the future, when something else happens. |
Formation | Form of be + present participle | Was or were + present participle | Will + be + present participle |
Example | am / is / are laughing | was / were laughing | will be laughing |
Perfect Tense | |||
Use | An action that happened at an unspecified time in the past. | An action that ended before another action or time in the past. | An action that will end before another action or time in the future. |
Formation | have or has + past participle | Had + past participle | Will + have + past participle |
Example | has / have laughed | had laughed | will have laughed |
Perfect Progressive Tense | |||
Use | An action occurring over time that started in the past and continues into the present. | An action that happened over time, in the past, before another time or action in the past. | An action occurring over time, in the future, before another action or time in the future. |
Formation | have + been + present participle | Had + been + present participle | Will + have + been + present participle |
Example | has / have been laughing | had been laughing | will have been laughing |
Helping verbs are used to write the:
- perfect,
- progressive,
- and perfect progressive verb tenses.