Tenses of the verb

Highway to success by Charles Dube

The question which could be asked by many people is: Why tenses now and again? The answer to this question has been proffered many times on these pages.

All sentences made have the verb. For those who do not know, last week we discussed the passive and the active voice. We are going back to discuss various aspects of the verb.

The tense of a verb indicates the time of the action or state of being expressed by the verb.

This has been made known to us that every verb has six tenses: present, past, future, present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect. Listing all of the forms of a verb according to tense is called conjugating a verb. For example, conjugating of the verb give goes as follows starting from the principal parts.

We have the base form of the verb present participle, past and past participle –give (is) giving, gave and (have) given. Present tense under Singular and Plural headlines: I give –we give; you give – you give; he, she, it gives they give. Past tense under the same headlines: I gave – we gave; you gave – you gave, he, she, it gave they gave.

Future tense (will or shall + base form – I will (shall) give –we will (shall) give; you will give, he, she, it will give –they will give. Present Perfect Tense (have or has + past participle) I have given- we have given; you have given – you have given, he, she, it has given – they have given. Past Perfect Tense (had + past participle) I had given-we had given: you had given- you had given, he, she, it had given –they had given.

Future Perfect Tense (will have or shall have + past participle) – I will (shall) have given; we will (shall) have given- you will have given- you will have given, he, she, it will have given- they will have given.

Conjugation of the verb BE: The conjugation of the verb be is somewhat different from that of the other verbs.

Notice that only the present and past tenses of be have the progressive form and that none of the tenses has the emphatic form.

Like what has been to others this is shown from the principal parts and relate headlines: Base Form, Present Participle, Past and Past Participle.

Be, (is) being, was, were and (have been). Present Tense – I am-we are; you are- you are; he, she, it is – they are. Present progressive: am, is, and are being. Past Tense – I was- we were; you were – you were; he, she, it was – they were. Future Tense (will or shall + base form). I will (shall) be, we will (shall) be; he, she, it will be – they will be. Present Perfect Tense (have or has + past participle).

I have been –w have been; you have been – you have been; he, she, it has been – they have been.

Past Perfect Tense (had + past participle) – I had been, we had been; you had been –you had been, he, she, it had been –they had been. Future Perfect Tense (will have or shall have + past participle) – I will (shall) have been- we will (shall) have been; you will have been –you will have been; he, she, it will have been – they will have been.

Forms of Modifiers: A modifier us a word that limits the meaning of another word. The two kinds of modifiers are the adjective and the adverb.

An adjective limits the meaning of a noun or a pronoun, Examples: you talk of a perfect score, an eager participant, a clear night and the last one.

An adverb limits the meaning of a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Examples: she walks briskly, completely innocent, gradually appeared and working remarkably hard.

Most modifiers with an –ly ending are used as adverbs. Many adverbs in fact are formed by adding –ly to an adjective. Examples: usual –usually, calm – calmly, brief – briefly, absurd absurdly, appropriate – appropriately. Some modifiers ending in –ly may be used as adjectives.

Examples: monthly payments, early indication, and likely outcome. A few modifiers have the same form whether they are used as adjectives or as adverbs.

Examples: Adjective – a fast train. Adverb –moves fast. A little speech –spoke little. An early start – starting early. Uses of modifiers: Use an adjective to modify the subject of a linking verb.

The most common linking verbs are the forms of be; am; is; are; was; were; be, been and being. Use an adverb to modify an action verb.

An action verb is often modified by an adverb – a word that explains how, when, where, or to what extent the action is performed.

Examples: The country’s cattle population is decreasing rapidly.

The astronaut spoke enthusiastically about her successful mission in space.

For views link with [email protected] or sms 0772113207.