Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Depending on the presence/lack of information displayed by the verb relative to duration and/or result, the English language identifies four distinct aspects:
Form: V/V-s, V-ed/V2, will/would V b. continuous [+ duration/ - result] (action in progress) Form: BE + V-ing c. perfect [- duration/ + result]
(looking back at an action) Form: HAVE + V-ed/V3 d. perfect continuous [+ duration/ + result]
Tenses in English
As there are three tenses (1. present, 2. past, 3. future) and four aspects (a. simple, b. continuous, c. perfect, d. perfect continuous), and a verb is a combination of these two grammatical categories (as seen above), it follows that the English verb system displays 3 x 4 = 12 distinct forms (or tenses): 1.a. Present simple V/V-s (3rd pers. singular) e.g. you write, he writes 1.b. Present continuous BE (present) + V-ing e.g. you are writing, he is writing 1.c. Present perfect HAVE (present) + V-ed/V3 e.g. you have worked, he has written
1.d. Present perfect continuous HAVE (present) + V3/BE + Ving BEEN e.g. you have been writing, he has been writing 2.a. Past simple V-ed/V2 e.g. you worked, he wrote 2.b. Past continuous BE (past) + V-ing e.g. you were writing, he was writing 2.c. Past perfect HAVE (past) + V-ed/V3 e.g. you had worked, he had written 2.d. Past perfect continuous HAVE (past) + V3/BE + Ving BEEN e.g. you had been writing 3.a. Future simple will V e.g. you will write 3.b. Future continuous BE (future) + V-ing e.g. you will be writing 3.c. Future perfect HAVE (future) + V-ed/V3 e.g. you will have written 3.d. Future perfect continuous HAVE (future) + V3/BE + Ving BEEN e.g. you will have been writing Remember The English verb system observes a specific rule called The Sequence of Tenses (Corespondena timpurilor), which states that if the verb in the main clause (= propoziie principal) is in the past, then the verb in the subordinate clause (= propoziie subordonat) referring to a future event MUST be in the future-in-thepast (viitor din perspectiva trecutului - timp inexistent n limba romn!). The auxiliary for future-in-the-past is will + -ed = would
4.a. Future-in-the-past simple would V e.g. he said/ you would write 4.b. Future-in-the-past continuous BE (future-in-the-past) + V-ing e.g. he said/ you would be writing
4.c. Future-in-the-past perfect HAVE (future-in-the-past) + V-ed/V3 e.g. he said/ you would have written 4.d. Future-in-the-past perfect continuous HAVE (future-in-the-past) + V3/BE + Ving BEEN e.g. he said/ you would have been writing Now, the English verb system has gained another four tenses for a total of 16 distinct forms. Below you can see a diagram of the English verb system, intended to serve you as a visual aid in your learning process, and to offer you an instant, overall picture of the relationships established among tenses. For didactic reasons (the diagram would be too complicated), the continuous aspect has been left out.
You should notice that HAVE, DO and WILL are the three major auxiliaries which position the action/state in time relative to the speech moment (now). Another major auxiliary, BE, is responsible for either presenting the action in progress, or turning a statement into the passive (i.e. switching position between the subject and the object of the sentence, as in the example above: the furniture, object in the active [what?], becomes subject in the passive [who?]). Also, it is important to remember that you cannot use WILL (the auxiliary of future) in time and condition clauses (= subordonate temporale i condiionale), introduced by any of those words in parentheses. Instead, you must always use the tenses in the diagram indicated by the arrows.