Table of English Tenses

Language Guide German + Dictionary for iPhone and iPod-Touch (made by ego4u) tense Affirmative/Negative/Question

Simple Present

A: He speaks. N: He does not speak. Q: Does he speak?

Use Signal Words action in the present taking always, place once, never every , or several times never, facts normally, actions taking often, seldom, place one after sometimes, another usually action set by a if sentences timetable or type I (If I schedule talk, ) action taking place in the moment of speaking action taking place only for a limited period of time action arranged for the future action in the past taking place once, never or several times actions taking place one after another action taking place in the middle of another action

Present Progressive

A: He is speaking. N: He is not speaking. Q: Is he speaking?

at the moment, just, just now, Listen!, Look!, now, right now

Simple Past

A: He spoke. N: He did not speak. Q: Did he speak?

yesterday, 2 minutes ago, in 1990, the other day, last Friday if sentence type II (If I talked, )

Past Progressive

A: He was speaking. N: He was not speaking. Q: Was he speaking?

action going on at a certain time when, while, in the past as long as actions taking place at the same

time action in the past that is interrupted by another action putting emphasis on the result action that is still going on action that stopped recently finished action already, ever, that has an just, never, not influence on the yet, so far, till present now, up to action that has now taken place once, never or several times before the moment of speaking putting emphasis on the course or duration (not the result) action that recently stopped or is still going on finished action that influenced the present action taking place before a certain time in the past sometimes interchangeable with past perfect progressive putting emphasis only on the fact

Present Perfect Simple

A: He has spoken. N: He has not spoken. Q: Has he spoken?

Present Perfect Progressive

A: He has been speaking. N: He has not been speaking. Q: Has he been speaking?

all day, for 4 years, since 1993, how long?, the whole week

Past Perfect Simple

A: He had spoken. N: He had not spoken. Q: Had he spoken?

already, just, never, not yet, once, until that day if sentence type III (If I had talked, )

(not the duration)

Past Perfect Progressive

A: He had been speaking. N: He had not been speaking. Q: Had he been speaking?

action taking place before a certain time in the past sometimes interchangeable for, since, the with past perfect whole day, all simple day putting emphasis on the duration or course of an action action in the future that cannot be influenced spontaneous decision assumption with regard to the future in a year, next , tomorrow If-Satz Typ I (If you ask her, she will help you.) assumption: I think, probably, perhaps

Future I Simple

A: He will speak. N: He will not speak. Q: Will he speak?

Future I Simple (going to)

A: He is going to speak. N: He is not going to speak. Q: Is he going to speak?

decision made for the future in one year, conclusion with next week, regard to the tomorrow future action that is going on at a certain time in in one year, the future next week, action that is tomorrow sure to happen in the near future action that will be finished at a certain time in the future action taking

A: He will be speaking. Future I Progressive N: He will not be speaking. Q: Will he be speaking?

Future II Simple

A: He will have spoken. N: He will not have spoken. Q: Will he have spoken?

by Monday, in a week for , the last

Future II Progressive A: He will have been speaking.

N: He will not have been speaking. Q: Will he have been speaking?

place before a couple of certain time in hours, all day the future long putting emphasis on the course of an action if sentences action that might type II take place (If I were you, I would go home.) action that might take place putting emphasis on the course / duration of the action if sentences action that might type III have taken place (If I had seen in the past that, I would have helped.) action that might have taken place in the past puts emphasis on the course / duration of the action

A: He would speak. Conditional I Simple N: He would not speak. Q: Would he speak?

Conditional I Progressive

A: He would be speaking. N: He would not be speaking. Q: Would he be speaking?

A: He would have spoken. Conditional II Simple N: He would not have spoken. Q: Would he have spoken?

Conditional II Progressive

A: He would have been speaking. N: He would not have been speaking. Q: Would he have been speaking?

A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.[1][note 1] The tenses are past, present, and future. Tense can also make finer distinctions than simple past-present-future; past tenses for example can cover general past, immediate past, or distant past, with the only difference between them being the distance on the timeline between the temporal reference points. Such distinctions are not precise: an event may be described in the remote past because it feels remote to the speaker, not because a set number of days have passed since it happened; it may also be remote because it is being contrasted with another, more recent, past event. This is similar to other forms of deixis such as this and that.

In absolute tense, as in English, tense indicates when the time of assertion, time of completion, or time of evaluation occurs relative to the utterance itself (time of utterance). In relative tense, on the other hand, tense is relative to some given event. The number of tenses in a language may be disputed, because the term tense is often used to represent any combination of tense proper, aspect, and mood. In many texts the term "tense" may erroneously indicate qualities of uncertainty, frequency, completion, duration, possibility, or whether information derives from experience or hearsay (evidentiality).[citation needed] Tense differs from aspect, which encodes how a situation or action occurs in time rather than when. In many languages, there are grammatical forms which express several of these meanings (see tense aspectmood). In languages which have tenses, they are normally usually indicated by a verb or modal verb. Some languages only have grammatical expression of time through aspect; others have neither tense nor aspect. Some East Asian isolating languages such as Chinese express time with temporal adverbs, but these are not required, and the verbs are not inflected for tense. In Slavic languages such as Russian a verb may be inflected for both tense and aspect together.

Contents
[hide]

1 Etymology 2 Examples o 2.1 Latin and Ancient Greek o 2.2 English o 2.3 Other languages 3 Classification 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 Bibliography 8 External links

[edit] Etymology
Tense comes from Old French tens "time", from Latin tempus "time",[2] a translation of Greek chrnos "time".[3][4] "Tense" as an adjective is unrelated, since it comes from the perfect passive participle of the Latin verb tendere "stretch".[5]

[edit] Examples
[edit] Latin and Ancient Greek

The word "tense" is used in the grammar of Latin and Ancient Greek as a morphological category of verbs. Latin is said to have six tenses:

Present Imperfect Future Perfect Pluperfect Future perfect

The tenses of Ancient Greek are similar, with an additional tense called the aorist. Though aorist is "Past" tense, but its main thrust is in its aspect: undefined. Other Greek tenses have an aspect related to continuity. Hence aorist has its special function as the only tense that can point to "point-like" events or non-continuity. Sometimes it is used to denote some actions which is in present tense as of English. The study of modern languages like English has been greatly influenced by the grammar of these languages, and their terminology is sometimes used to describe modern languages. This leads to sentences like "He had walked" in English being labelled as "pluperfect". Another example is that six tenses in German have been identified which correspond to the six Latin tenses above.
[edit] English See also: English verbs#Overview of syntactic constructions

English has two true tenses, past and present (sometimes analysed as non-past). These are distinguished by the inflection of the verb, by either ablaut or a suffix -ed (walks ~ walked, sings ~ sang). The future is expressed with a modal construction, which is not a true tense,[6] and does not always appear (it is optional in subordinate constructions such as I hope you (will) go tomorrow, and is prohibited with other modals as in I can go tomorrow, but past tense cannot be similarly omitted: *I hope you go yesterday, *I can go yesterday). English also has so-called "compound tenses", such as the past perfect and present progressive, which use modals to combine tense with other grammatical categories such as aspect.
Tense, aspect, and modals in English Aspect Tense Modal Perfect Progressive

- (nonpast) (none) (none) (none) -ed (past) will (future) have -en (perfect) be -ing (progressive)

go, goes went

will go

have gone

be going

Traditional grammars often considered will to be a future marker and described English as having two non-inflected tenses, a future marked by will and a future-in-past marked by would.
[edit] Other languages

Indo-European languages inflect verbs for a variety of tenses, aspects, and moods, as well as combining them with verbal auxiliaries, the most common of which are "be", "have", and modal auxiliaries such as English will, Danish vil . Romance and Germanic languages often add "hold", "stand", "go", or "come" as auxiliary verbs. For example, Spanish and Portuguese use estar ("to be") with the present gerund to indicate the present continuous aspect. Portuguese uses ter ("to have") with the past participle for the perfect. Swedish uses kommer att ("come to") for the simple future. Portuguese/Spanish ir and French aller ("to go") have the same sense of simple future. These compound verb constructions are often known as "complex tenses" or "compound tenses", despite involving more than tense. Examples of tense and aspect in some Indo-European and Uralic verbs for "to go" are shown in the table below.
Ger man ic: Swe dish : att g( wal k)

Ger man ic: Tense/aspe Engl ct ish: to go

Ger man ic: Ger man : geh en

Ger man ic: Dutc h: gaa n

Ger man ic: Dani sh: at g

Celt ic: Iris h: tig h

Rom Rom anc ance: e: Portu Itali gues an: e: and ir are

Slavic: Bulgari an: / 1

Slavic : Mace donia n:

Urali c: Finni sh: menn

Urali c: Hun garia n: men ni

Indo- Rom Europe anc an: e: Latin: Fren ire/va ch: dere aller

Turki c: Turki sh: gitm ek

Non() durational Ich (Io) Ik Jeg Jag Ti (Eu) (simple) vad . I go. gehe ga. gr. gr. m. vou. Aspects in ( ) . o. Present . In most languages this is used for most present

(Min (n) (Ego) ) Je Gider meg eo/vad mene vais. im. yek. o. n.

indicative uses. In English, it is used mainly to express habit or ability (I play the guitar). () NonChu durational I Ich Ik (Io) Jeg Jag aig (Eu) . (simple) wen ging ging and gik. gick. h fui. () Aspects in t. . . ai. . m. Past . Implies that the action took place in the past and that it is not taking place now. Nondurational I will (simple) go. Aspects in Future Can express intention, prediction, and other senses. Durational I am Ich Ik Jeg "Jag T (Io) (Eu) () (Min (Ego) Je Gidiy Ich () Ik Rac wer Jeg Jag (Io) . zal hai (Eu) de vil ska andr () gaa dh irei. . gehe g.3 g.3 . n. m. n. . (Min ) tulen mene mn .4 (n) men (Ego) Gidec ni ibo/va J'irai eim. fogo dam. k. J'all ais/j Gitti e m. suis all

(Min (n) ) ment meni em. n.

(progressiv goin bin ben er r m e/continuo g. am aan ge gen ag us) Aspects gehe het nde. de" dul. in Present n.5 gaa n. / Ik ben gaa nde.

sto estou and indo. . and o.

) olen meno ssa.

eo/vad suis orum o. en . trai ((Ego) n iens/va d'all dens er. sum.)

This form is prevalent in English to express current action. Durational aspects are most common in languages in which the Aktionsart of the verb is not a heavily governing factor in determining grammatical structure. Durational aspects use a structural form of the utterance to override the otherwise non-durational Aktionsart of content verbs. Ik was aan Durational Ich I het (progressiv war was gaa e/continuo am goin n. / us) Aspects gehe Ik g. in Past n.5 was gaa nde. Ik zal Ich aan wer het Durational I will de gaa (progressiv be am n e/continuo goin gehe zijn. us) Aspects / Ik g. n in Future sein. zal 5 gaa nde zijn. Jeg var ge nde. / Jeg skull e til at g2. (Ego) ibam/v adeba (Min (n) m. ) meg olin yek ((Ego) meno vala. fui ssa. 6 iens/va dens sum)

Jag var p vg att g2

Bh m ag dul.

(Io) stav o and and o.

(Eu) estav () a indo/ . ia.

Gidiy ordu m.

Jeg skal til at g.

Bei dh me ag dul.

(Eu) () estar ei indo.

Gidiy or olaca m.

Perfected I Ich Ik Jeg T (Io) (Eu) (Min Jag Nonhave bin ben har me i son fui/te ) har durational gon geg geg get ndi o nho . olen

(Ego) Je ii/vasi. suis

(simple) e. Aspects in Present

ang aan. . en.

gtt. aid and ido. h ato. dul.

. .

menn yt.

all.

Refers to a verb that is completed as of the present (as of the Time of Utterance). (Io) ero Perfected Bh Ich Jeg and NonI Ik Jag m i war hav ato durational had was had ndi geg de / (simple) gon geg e aid ang get (Io) Aspects in e. aan. gtt. h fui en. . Past dul. and ato.

(Eu) fora/ havia (tinh a) ido.

() . () .

(Min ) olin menn yt.

(n) (Ego) J'ta ment ieram/ Gitmi is em vasera tim all. 6 volt. m

Refers to a verb that is completed as of a time in the past (before the Time of Utterance). Ich I wer shall de have geg gon ang en e. sein. () Bei dh (Io) m i (Eu) sar . ndi terei and () aid ido. ato. h dul. .

Perfected Nondurational (simple) Aspects in Future

Jag Ik Jeg kom zal vil mer geg have att aan get ha zijn. . gtt.

(Min ) olen tullut . mene mn

Je Gitmi (Ego) sera iero/va i olaca sero. all. m.

Refers to a verb that is completed as of a time in the future (after the Time of Utterance). Ich Ik bin ben I am aan have gehe het been n gaa goin gew n g. esen gew .5 eest.

Perfected Durational (progressiv e/continuo us) Aspects in Present

(Eu) estiv e indo.

Expresses the completed duration of an event or habit started at some time prior to the TUTT and continues up to the TCOM which coincides with TUTT and may continue beyond that TCOM, but whose duration is only measurable up to TCOM. Perfected I Ich Ik (Eu)

Durational (progressiv e/continuo us) Aspects in Past

had war was been am aan goin gehe het gaa g. n gew n esen gew .5 eest.

estiv era indo/ tinha estad o indo.

Expresses the completed duration of an event or habit started at some time prior to the Time of Utterance and continues up to the TCOM which is also prior to TUTT and which may continue beyond that TCOM, but whose duration is only measurable up to TCOM. Ik zal aan het gaa n gew eest zijn. / Ik zal gaa nde gew eest zijn.

Perfected Durational (progressiv e/continuo us) Aspects in Future

I shall have been goin g.

Eu terei estad o indo

() .

Expresses the completed duration of an event or habit started at some time before, after, or concurrent with the Time of Utterance and continues up to the TCOM which is after TUTT and which may continue beyond that TCOM, but whose duration is only measurable up to TCOM.
1

O and are two different verbs meaning "to go", which do not differ semantically, but grammatically. Their aspect is different, the first one is an incompletive verb and the second one is a completive verb.
2

This only works with adverbs, as in "I was going when someone suddenly stopped me"; not just "I was going to their house". Otherwise, the corresponding simple tense is used.
3

This is not a true future tense, but a going-to future, as its exact meaning is I am going to go.

The use of the verb tulla "to come" to express a future tense is a sveticism and is recommended against by the language regulator. Official Finnish has no future tense, and even the use of this tulen-construction is uncommon in unofficial contexts. Thus, the present tense is used. However, a telic object may implicitly communicate the time, which has no direct equivalent in English.
5

Used only in colloquial language in the Rhineland area. Used only sporadically or in archaic Hungarian.

[edit] Classification
Tenses are broadly classified as present, past, or future. In absolute-tense systems, these indicate the temporal distance from the time of utterance. In relative-tense systems, they indicate temporal distance from a point of time established in the discourse. There are also absoluterelative tenses, which are two degrees removed from the temporal reference point, such as future-in-future (at some time in the future, event will still be in the future) and future-in-past (at some time in the past, event was in the future). Many languages do not grammaticalize all three categories. For instance, English has past and non-past ("present"); other languages may have future and non-future. In some languages, there is not a single past or future tense, but finer divisions of time, such as proximal vs. distant future, experienced vs. ancestral past, or past and present today vs. before and after today. Some attested tenses:

Future tenses. o Immediate future: right now o Near future: soon o Hodiernal future: later today [citation needed] o Vespertine future: this evening o Post-hodiernal: after today o Crastinal: tomorrow o Remote future, distant future o Posterior tense (relative future tense) Nonfuture tense: refers to either the present or the past, but does not clearly specify which. Contrasts with future. Present tense [citation needed] o Still tense: indicates a situation held to be the case, at or immediately before the utterance Nonpast tense: refers to either the present or the future, but does not clearly specify which. Contrasts with past. Past tenses. Some languages have different past tenses to indicate how far into the past we are talking about. o Immediate past: very recent past, just now o Recent past: in the last few days/weeks/months (conception varies) Nonrecent past: contrasts with recent past

o o o o o o o o o

Hodiernal past: earlier today Matutinal past: this morning[citation needed] Prehodiernal: before today Hesternal: yesterday or early, but not remote Prehesternal: before yesterday Remote past: more than a few days/weeks/months ago (conception varies) Nonremote past: contrasts with remote past Ancestral past, legendary past General past: the entire past conceived as a whole Anterior tense (relative past tense)

[edit] See also

Sequence of tenses Grammatical conjugation Grammatical mood Grammatical aspect Nominal TAM Tenseaspectmood Verb

[edit] Notes
1. ^ Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6: the semantic concept of time reference (absolute or relative), ... may be grammaticalised in a language, i.e. a language may have a grammatical category that expresses time reference, in which case we say that the language has tenses. Many languages lack tense, i.e. do not have grammatical time reference, though probably all languages can lexicalise time reference, i.e. have temporal adverbials that locate situations in time

[edit] References
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. ^ Fabricius-Hansen, "Tense", in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2006 ^ tempus. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short. A Latin Dictionary on Perseus Project. ^ . Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A GreekEnglish Lexicon at Perseus Project ^ "tense". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 3rd ed. 2001. ^ Harper, Douglas. "tense". Online Etymology Dictionary. ^ Pullum, Geoffrey (18 March 2008). "The Lord Which Was and Is". Language Log. Retrieved 8 November 2010.

[edit] Bibliography

Bybee, Joan L., Revere Perkins, and William Pagliuca (1994) The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. University of Chicago Press. Comrie, Bernard (1985) Tense. Cambridge University Press. [ISBN 0-521-28138-5] Guillaume, Gustave (1929) Temps et verbe. Paris: Champion.

Hopper, Paul J., ed. (1982) TenseAspect: Between Semantics and Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Smith, Carlota (1997). The Parameter of Aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Tedeschi, Philip, and Anne Zaenen, eds. (1981) Tense and Aspect. (Syntax and Semantics 14). New York: Academic Press.