imple Present

FORM
[VERB] + s/es in third person Examples:

You speak English. Do you speak English? You do not speak English. Complete List of Simple Present Forms

USE 1 Repeated Actions

Use the Simple Present to express the idea that an action is repeated or usual. The action can be a habit, a hobby, a daily event, a scheduled event or something that often happens. It can also be something a person often forgets or usually does not do. Examples:

I play tennis. She does not play tennis. Does he play tennis? The train leaves every morning at 8 AM. The train does not leave at 9 AM. When does the train usually leave? She always forgets her purse. He never forgets his wallet. Every twelve months, the Earth circles the Sun. Does the Sun circle the Earth?

USE 2 Facts or Generalizations

The Simple Present can also indicate the speaker believes that a fact was true before, is true now, and will be true in the future. It is not important if the speaker is correct about the fact. It is also used to make generalizations about people or things. Examples:

Cats like milk. Birds do not like milk. Do pigs like milk? California is in America. California is not in the United Kingdom. Windows are made of glass. Windows are not made of wood. New York is a small city. IT IS NOT IMPORTANT THAT THIS FACT IS UNTRUE.

USE 3 Scheduled Events in the Near Future

Speakers occasionally use Simple Present to talk about scheduled events in the near future. This is most commonly done when talking about public transportation, but it can be used with other scheduled events as well. Examples:

The train leaves tonight at 6 PM. The bus does not arrive at 11 AM, it arrives at 11 PM. When do we board the plane? The party starts at 8 o'clock. When does class begin tomorrow?

USE 4 Now (Non-Continuous Verbs)

Speakers sometimes use the Simple Present to express the idea that an action is happening or is not happening now. This can only be done with Non-Continuous Verbsand certain Mixed Verbs. Examples:

I am here now. She is not here now. He needs help right now. He does not need help now. He has his passport in his hand. Do you have your passport with you?

ADVERB PLACEMENT
The examples below show the placement for grammar adverbs such as: always, only, never, ever, still, just, etc. Examples:

You only speak English. Do you only speak English?

ACTIVE / PASSIVE
Examples:

Once a week, Tom cleans the car. ACTIVE Once a week, the car is cleaned by Tom. PASSIVE

Simple Present Forms

Most Verbs
Most verbs conjugate like the verb "run" below. Notice how you add an "s" to thirdperson forms. Third-person negative forms and third-person questions are made using "does." Positive

Negative

Question

I run. You run. We run. They run. He runs. She runs.

I do not run. You do not run. We do not run. They do not run. He does not run. She does not run.

Do I run? Do you run? Do we run? Do they run? Does he run? Does she run?

It runs.

It does not run.

Does it run?

Instead of "s," "es" is added to positive, third-person forms of verbs ending with the following sounds: s, z, sh, ch, j or zs (as in Zsa Zsa). These special "es"-forms have been marked below with an asterisk*. Positive

Negative

Question

I rush. You rush. We rush. They rush. He rushes. * She rushes. * It rushes. *

I do not rush. You do not rush. We do not rush. They do not rush. He does not rush. She does not rush. It does not rush.

Do I rush? Do you rush? Do we rush? Do they rush? Does he rush? Does she rush? Does it rush?

To Have
The verb "have" is irregular in positive, third-person forms. This irregular form has been marked below with an asterisk*. Positive

Negative

Question

I have. You have. We have. They have. He has. * She has. * It has. *

I do not have. You do not have. We do not have. They do not have. He does not have. She does not have. It does not have.

Do I have? Do you have? Do we have? Do they have? Does he have? Does she have? Does it have?

To Be
The verb "be" is irregular in the Simple Present. It also has different question forms and negative forms.

Positive

Negative

Question

I am. You are. We are. They are. He is. She is. It is.

I am not. You are not. We are not. They are not. He is not. She is not. It is not.

Am I? Are you? Are we? Are they? Is he? Is she? Is it?

Modal Verbs
Modal verbs behave differently from other verbs. Notice that they do not take "s" in the third person - there is no difference between first-person, second-person or third-person forms. Like the verb "be" described above, modal verbs also have different question forms and negative forms in Simple Present. Positive

Negative

Question

I should go. You should go. We should go. They should go. He should go. She should go. It should go.

I should not go. You should not go. We should not go. They should not go. He should not go. She should not go. It should not go.

Should I go? Should you go? Should we go? Should they go? Should he go? Should she go? Should it go?

Grammatical tense
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs attention from an expert on the subject. Please add a reason or a talk parameter to this template to explain the issue with the article. Consider associating this request with a WikiProject. (September 2010)

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help toimprove this article

by introducing more precise citations. (September 2010)

Grammatical categories

Agency Animacy

Associated motion Aspect Case Clusivity Comparison Definiteness Evidentiality Focus Gender Mirativity Modality Mood Noun class Number Person Polarity Tense Topic Transitivity Valency Voice Volition

In grammar, tense is a category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place. [1][note
1]

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. The "unmarked" reference for tense is the temporal distance from the time of utterance, the "here-and-now", this being absolute-tense. Relativetense indicates temporal distance from a point of time established in the discourse that is not the present, i.e. reference to a point in the past or future, such as the future-in-future, or the future of the future (at some time in the future after the reference point, which is in the future) and future-in-past or future of the past (at some time after a point in the past, with the reference point being a point in the past). Not all languages grammaticalise tense, and those that do differ in their grammaticalisation thereof. Languages without tense are called tenseless languages and include Burmese, Dyirbal and Chinese[2]. Not all grammaticalise the three-way system of pastpresentfuture. For example, some two-tense languages such as English and Japanese express past and non-past, this latter covering both present and future in one verb form, whereas others such as Greenlandic and Quechuahave future and non-future. Four-tense languages make finer distinctions either in the past (e.g. remote vs recent past), or the future (e.g. near vs remote future). The six-tense language Kalaw Lagaw Ya of Australia has the remote past, the recent past, the today past, the present, the today/near future and the remote future. The differences between such finer distinctions are the distance on the timeline between the temporal reference points from the present.
Contents
[hide]

1 Etymology 2 Tense marking 3 Other uses of the term tense: tense, aspect, and mood 4 Tense in languages of the world

o o o

4.1 Latin and Ancient Greek 4.2 English 4.3 Other languages

5 Grammaticalisation of tenses 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 Bibliography 10 External links

Etymology[edit]
Tense comes from Old French tens "time" (now spelled temps through deliberate archaisation), from Latin tempus "time".[3] The adjective "tense" is unrelated, being a Latin loan from tensus, theperfect passive participle of tendere "stretch".[4]

Tense marking[edit]
Tense is normally indicated by a verb form, either on the main verb or on an auxiliary verb. The tense markers are normally affixes, but also stem modification such as ablaut or reduplication can express tense reference, and in some languages tense can be shown by clitics. Often combinations of these can interact, such as in Irish, where there is a proclitic past tense marker do (various surface forms) used in conjunction with the affixed or ablaut-modified past tense form of the verb. Languages that do not have grammatical tense, such as Chinese, express time reference through adverbials, time phrases, and so on.

Other uses of the term tense: tense, aspect, and mood[edit]

In many language descriptions, particularly those of traditional European linguistics, the term tense is erroneously used to refer to categories that do not have time reference as their prototypical use, but rather are grammaticalisations of mood/modality (e.g. uncertainty, possibility, evidentiality) or aspect (e.g. frequency, completion, duration). Tense differs from aspect in showing the time reference, while aspect shows how the action/state is "envisaged" or "seen" as happening/occurring. The most common aspectual distinction in languages of the world is that between perfective(complete, permanent, simple, etc.) and imperfective (incomplete, temporary, continuous, etc.). The term tense is therefore at times used in language descriptions to represent any combination of tense proper, aspect, and mood, as many languages include more than one such reference in portmanteau TAM (tenseaspectmood) affixes or verb forms. Conversely, languages that grammaticalise aspect can have tense as a secondary use of an aspect. In many languages, such as the Latin, Celtic and Slavic languages, a verb may be inflected for both tense and aspect together, as in the pass compos/pass simple (historique) and imparfait of French. Verbs can also be marked for both mood and tense together, such as the present subjunctive (So be it) and the past subjunctive (Were it so), or all three, such as the past perfect subjunctive (Had it been so).

Tense in languages of the world[edit]

Latin and Ancient Greek[edit]
The word tempus was used in the grammar of Latin to describe the six "tenses" of Latin. Four are absolute tenses, of which two are combined tenseaspect categories, marking aspect in the past, while two are relative tenses, in showing time reference to another point of time:

Praesens ( present) Praeteritum imperfectum (= imperfective past, i.e. a combined tenseaspect) Praeteritum perfectum (= perfective past, i.e. a combined tenseaspect) Futurus (= future) Plus quam perfectum (= relative past, i.e. a past that refers to the past of a reference in the past) Anterior Futurus (= relative future, i.e. a past that refers to the past of a future point)

The tenses of Ancient Greek are similar, though having a three-way aspect contrast in the past, the aorist, the perfect and the imperfect. The aorist was the simple past which contrasted with theimperfective (uncompleted action in the past) and the perfect, the past form that had relevance to the present. The study of modern languages has been greatly influenced by the grammar of these languages, seeing that the early grammarians, often monks, had no other reference point to describe their language. Latin terminology is often used to describe modern languages, at times erroneously, as in the application of the term "pluperfect" to the English "past perfect", the application of "perfect" to what in English more often than not is not "perfective", or where the German simple and perfect pasts are called respectively "Imperfektum" and "Perfektum", despite the fact that neither has any real relationship to the aspects implied by the use of the Latin terms.

English[edit]
See also: English verbs and English clause syntax English, like the other Germanic languages, Japanese, Persian, and so on, has only two morphological tenses, past and non-past (alt. presentfuture). These are distinguished by verb form, by either ablaut or suffix (sings ~ sang, walks ~ walked). The non-past may be used to reference the future ("The bus leaves tomorrow ").

Tense and aspect in English

Tense

Simple

Perfect

Continuous/Progressive

nonpast -/-s has/have -en, -ed, ablaut, etc. am/is/are -ing past -ed, -t, ablaut, etc. had -en, -ed, ablaut, etc. was/were -ing

nonpast go, goes past went

have/has gone had gone

am/is/are going was/were going

Other languages[edit]
In general Indo-European languages have either two-tense systems like English (e.g. the German languages, Persian, etc.) or three-tense systems of pastpresentfuture (e.g. the Latin, Slavic and Celtic languages), with finer categorisations made by the use of "compound tenses" using auxiliary verbs, as with English be going to, French venir de, and so on. Such compound tenses often have a combined aspectual or modal meaning, as in be going to, which focuses on the modalilty of intended/obvious future based on present evidence. Other tensed languages of the world are similar, or mark tense in a variety of ways, often with TAM affixes where tense, aspect and mood are expressed by portmanteau affixes - as is often the case also in IndoEuropean languages. Many languages, such as Irish, also mark person and number as part of the TAM suffix, such as the first, second and third person singular marking of Munster Irish. Examples of tense systems in languages of the world are the following: Germanic Languages: German: Past Non-Past : In many dialects the former perfect form has replaced the preterite as the marker of the past tense, except for "fossilised forms". Dutch: Past Non-Past Danish: Past Non-Past Celtic Languages: Irish: Past Present Future The past contrasts perfective and imperfective aspect, and some verbs retain a perfective-imperfective contrast in the present. In Classical Irish/Gaelic, a three-way aspectual contrast of simple-perfective-imperfective in the past and present existed. Latin Languages: Italian: Past Present Future The present covers definite non-past, while the Future covers the probable non-past. Indo-Iranian Languages: Persian: imperfective vs perfective past - non-past Some verbs retain the imperfective-perfective contrast in the non-past. Slavic Languages: Bulgarian: perfective vs imperfective past perfective vs imperfective present future Macedonian: perfective vs imperfective past present future Serbian: perfective vs imperfective past vs aorist vs pluperfect - present - future

Uralic Languages: Finnish: past non-past Hungarian: past present future Korean Languages: Korean: past present future Japanese Languages: Japanese: past non-past Turkic Languages: Turkish: pluperfect perfective vs imperfective past present future Papuan Languages: Meriam Mr: remote past recent past present near future remote future All tenses contrast imperfective and perfective aspect. Pama-Nyungan Languages: Kalaw Lagaw Ya: remote past recent past today past present near future remote future; one dialect also has a "last night" tense All tenses contrast imperfective and perfective aspect.

Grammaticalisation of tenses[edit]
Many languages do not grammaticalise all three categories. For instance, English has past and nonpast ("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.

Immediate future: right now Near future: soon Hodiernal future: later today Vespertine future: this evening[citation needed] Post-hodiernal: after today Crastinal: tomorrow Remote future, distant future 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

Still tense:[citation needed] 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.

Immediate past: very recent past, just now Recent past: in the last few days/weeks/months (conception varies)

Nonrecent past: contrasts with recent past

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

Historical Past: shows that the action/state was part of an event in the past Ancestral past, legendary past General past: the entire past conceived as a whole Anterior tense (relative past tense)

See also[edit]

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

Notes[edit]
1. Jump up^ 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. Some 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

References[edit]
1. 2. 3. 4. Jump up^ Fabricius-Hansen, "Tense", in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics , 2nd ed., 2006 Jump up^ Comrie 1985, pp. 50-53. Jump up^ tempus. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short. A Latin Dictionary on Perseus Project. Jump up^ Harper, Douglas. "tense". Online Etymology Dictionary.

Bibliography[edit]

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.

External links[edit]

Tense Explained (with diagrams) English Aspectual forms in Various Tenses Combinations of Tense, Aspect, and Mood in Greek English Grammar Overview - Tenses with Exercises

I sing

How do we make the Present Simple Tense?

subject + auxiliary verb + main verb

do

base

There are three important exceptions: 1. For positive sentences, we do not normally use the auxiliary. 2. For the 3rd person singular (he, she, it), we add s to the main verb or es to the auxiliary. 3. For the verb to be, we do not use an auxiliary, even for questions and negatives. Look at these examples with the main verb like: subject + I, you, we, they He, she, it I, you, we, they He, she, it ? Do Does do does I, you, we, they he, she, it not not auxiliary verb main verb like likes like like like like coffee. coffee. coffee. coffee. coffee? coffee?

Look at these examples with the main verb be. Notice that there is no auxiliary: subject + I You, we, they He, she, it main verb am are is French. French. French.

I You, we, they He, she, it

am are is I you, we, they he, she, it

not not not

old. old. old. late? late? late?

Am Are Is

How do we use the Present Simple Tense?

We use the present simple tense when:

the action is general the action happens all the time, or habitually, in the past, present and future the action is not only happening now the statement is always true John drives a taxi. past present future

It is John's job to drive a taxi. He does it every day. Past, present and future.

Look at these examples:

I live in New York. The Moon goes round the Earth. John drives a taxi. He does not drive a bus. We meet every Thursday.

We do not work at night. Do you play football?

Note that with the verb to be, we can also use the present simple tense for situations that are not general. We can use the present simple tense to talk about now. Look at these examples of the verb "to be" in the present simple tense - some of them are general, some of them are now: Am I right? Tara is not at home. You are happy. past present future

The situation is now.

I am not fat. Why are you so beautiful? Ram is tall. past present future

The situation is general. Past, present and future.

This page shows the use of the present simple tense to talk about general events. But note that there are some other uses for the present simple tense, for example in conditional or ifsentences, or to talk about the future. You will learn about those later. Present Simple Quiz Present Simple Games