THE ENGLISH TENSE SYSTEM
M. Viña-Rouco

TIME AND TENSE
 Time: a universal concept
 Tense: a grammatical category
 Jespersen’s division of Time

Divisions:
 Before Past
 Past
 After Past
 Present
 Before Future
 Future
 After Future

Some Examples:
 He jumped over the wall.
 After I had come into the room I locked the door.
 He said he was going out that afternoon.
 I am standing by the blackboard.
 I live in London.
 I’ll be seeing him tomorrow
 The plane leaves at 6 p.m.
 When he comes back I will have finished my work
 He will tell you he will come next day.

THE PRESENT
 THE PRESENT SIMPLE
 Affirm. Interrog. and Neg.
 3rd. Person singular + s
 The –s ending:
 -s /s / -ies /z / -es /iz
 Speaks Studies Watches

USES OF THE SIMPLE PRESENT
 PERMANENT TRUTHS
 THE PRESENT PERIOD
 HABITUAL ACTIONS
 FUTURES REFERENCE
 PROFESSIONS
 ABILITIES OR CAPACITIES
 PROVERBS
 OBSERVATIONS AND DECLARATIONS

THE PRESENT PROGRESSIVE
 SPELLING -ing
 Wait – waiting; carry – carrying
 Write – writing; use – using
 Run – running; hit – hitting
 Begin – beginning; forget – forgetting
 Exceptions: label – labelling; quarrel – quarrelling
 -ic ick: panic – panicking; traffic – trafficking
 Lie – lying; die – dying; tie - tying

USES OF THE PRESENT PROGRESSIVE
 Actions in progress at the time of speaking
 Temporary situations
 Planned actions: future reference
 Repeated actions (annoyance, surprise, irritation)

STATIVE AND DYNAMIC VERBS
 Stative: states, experiences or conditions.
Feelings, thinking or believing, wants and preferences,
perceptions and the senses, being, seeming, having
 Dynamic: deliberate actions or changing
situations (inchoactive).

Conjugate the verb: To Write
 Present Past Future Conditional
 Indefinite Indefinite Indefinite Indefinite
 Continuous Continuous Continuous Continuous
 Perfect Perfect Perfect Perfect
 Perfect. Cont. Perfect.Cont.Perfect.Cont. Perf. Cont.

Simple Past Tense
 With an adverb of past time which may refer to:
 A) a point of time
 B) a period of time
 C) the time may be implied
 He was born in in 1988
 They lived in Ireland during the war.
 I bought this book in London

Pronunciation of past tense regular
verbs.
 /t/ / d/ / id /
 Walked arrived posted
 Stopped occurred waited

Past Progressive
 An activity or state was continuing at some definite
time in the past:
 This time last year I was travelling round the world.
 When the chief interest is in the activity itself.
 The girls were making cakes all morning!
 Two or more activities were continuing at the same
time.
 While I was sowing seeds, Harry was digging up
potatoes and George was picking plums.

More uses:
 Insistence in the past (annoyance, irritation)
 She was always yawning in class
 For a limited period of time
 In order to please his wife, who was threatening to leave
him, he was taking his children out much more often in
those days.

THE PRESENT PERFECT TENSE
 USES:
 To describe actions beginning in the past and
continuing up to the present.
 I’ve planted 14 trees so far this morning.
 He hasn’t been home since he was a boy.
 To refer to actions occurring at an unspecified
time in the past.
 The thief has been arrested.
 The present perfect for recent actions

I’ve just tidied up.
He’s recently arrived.
 For repeated and habitual actions:
 She has attended classes regularly./ She’s always
worked hard.

PAST PERFECT TENSE:Uses
 Refers to an earlier past.
 The patient had died when the doctor arrived.
 When I rang Jim had already left
 To refer to unfulfilled hopes and wishes
 I had hoped to send him a telegram but I didn’t manage it.

Present and Past Perfect Progressive
 USES:
 Actions in progress throughout a period
 She’s been typing letters all day
 For repeated actions
 He has been phoning Mary every night
 For drawing conclusions
 Your eyes are red. You’ve been crying.