(a) The Present Tense describes an action in the present time:
I go.
He writes.
They are playing.
(b) The Past Tense describes an action in the past time:
I went.
He wrote.
They were playing.
(c) The Future Tense describes an action in the future time :
I shall go.
He will write.
They will be playing.
❒ The Present Indefinite Tense is used to refer to
(a) A universal or general truth:
The earth is round.
Honey is sweet.
Honesty is the best policy.
(b) An habitual or permanent action:
He works hard.
This watch keeps good time.
(c) A future action, when the futurity is indicated by the context:
He will go home when you come.
The school closes on the 15th.
NOTE: This usage is common with verbs of motior Come, go, start, return, etc.
(d) Past events in order to make the narrative more vivid. This is called the Historic or Graphic Present: Alexander now rushes upon the enemy.
(e) A present action: It rains. How he walks.
NOTE: But more often, the present continuous tense is used in such cases : It is raining. He is walking.
Quotations from authors: Goldsmith says, "Handsome is that handsome docs."
(g) The present perfect tense: I hear ( have heard) he is ill. I am told (=have been told) that he will come.
(a.i) An action going on at present:
I am writing. He is sleeping.
(a.ii) A future action: I am going there tomorrow.
(b) This tense is not generally used with Verbs of Perception or with verbs denoting a feeling or emotion, or verbs of knowing, thinking, etc., such as, believe, feel, taste, smell, desire, hate, recognize, hear, hope, know, like, love, sec, understand, want, wish, wonder. Other verbs not used in this tense-form are belong, consist, contain, matter, possess, resemble, etc.
Thus,
I feel (not, am feeling) unwell.
I see (not am seeing) him.
I hope for the best.
I wish you success.
I want a pen.
It matters little.
I wonder where he is.
This picture resembles that.
But am feeling, is looking are now used even by good writers.
(a) To express an action just finished:
I have done my duty.
The sun has set.
(b) To express a past action the result of which still continue:
I have done a great wrong (i.e., I am still suffering from the consequences of my doing the wrong).
He has been laborious (i.e. he is now reaping the fruits of his laborious habits).
(c) To express an action done in a space of time not yet gone out fully:
I have been laborious from my boyhood (i.e. am laborious still).
(d) To express a future perfect when preceded by when, before, after, as soon as, etc. I shall go there after (or when) I have finished the work.
NOTE: (a) The Present Perfect Tense form of some intransitive verbs signifying motion or change, as, go, come, set, rise, etc., is sometimes formed with the verb be: He is gone. The sun is set. The moon is risen.
(b) As the Present Perfect denotes the present time, it cannot be qualified by an adverb or phrase denoting past time: He died (not, has died) last night. I came (not, have come) here yesterday.
❒ The Present Perfect Continuous Tense expresses that action has been going on for some time and is not finished yet:
I have been doing this for six months.
❒ The Past Indefinite Tense is used to denote :
(a) A single act in the past: I did it.
(b) An action actually going on in the past: "While they danced (=were dancing) we sang (=were singing)."
(c) An habitual action in the past:
He studied ( used to study) hard.
He held his class here.
NOTE: We also sometimes use the Past Indefinite —
(a) To denote an action begun a short time before and perhaps continued up to the time of speaking:
I came (have come) to ask you to vote for Mr Dutt.
(b) As a polite or deprecatory form of address:
Could (can) you please tell me the time? Was (is) this the sort of thing you wanted ?
❒ The Past Continuous Tense denotes that an action was going on in the past:
He was reading when I saw him.
❒ The Past Perfect Tense expresses an action complete before another past action:
He had left before I came.
NOTE: If the sentence contains "before" or "after," the Past Perfect Tense stands before "before" but after "after". As an aid to memory, boys may remember, "Before before, after after." He had come before I did. He left after I had gone away.
[But the modern tendency is to use the Past Indefinite tense even for Past Perfect. POD has 'This was after he became famous' under after. See also under before there.]
❒ The Past Perfect Continuous Tense denotes that an action had been going on at or before some point of time in the past:
I had been working when he came.
❒ The Future Indefinite Tense denotes an action that will happen in the future:
I shall do it.
He will go home.
❒ The Future Continuous Tense represents an action as going on at some future time: I shall be sleeping at that time.
❒ The Future Perfect Tense denotes that an action will be completed at some point of time in the future:
He will have done this before you come (=will come).
To conjugate a verb is to show its chief parts. In a wider sense it means all the forms to denote Mood, Tense, Voice, Number and Person. But the chief parts of a verb are the Present, the Past, and the Past Participle; all other parts can be easily formed from them.
❒ Verbs are divided into two classes according to the way in which they form their Past Tense and Past Participle :
(a) Strong Verbs are those that form their Past Tense by changing an inside vowel of the Present, but never by the addition of a suffix. The Past Participle may, however, sometimes end in en or n :
Sing, sang, sung;
Drive, drove, driven.
(b) Weak Verbs are those that form their Past Tense by adding -d or -t, with or without a change of the inside vowel:
Leap, leaped, leaped;
Dream, dreamt, dreamt.
NOTE: (a) Formerly Strong verbs were called Irregular, and Weak verbs were called Regular. But these names are misleading and have been given up now.
(b) "Some weak verbs seem to belong to the strong conjugation, because they change the vowel; as, teach, taught; seek, sought; say, said; but they are weak because they add -d or -t for the past tense."
❒ Some weak verbs ending in -d or -t in the Present Tense :
(i) Have the same form in three tenses
cut, cut, cut;
cost, cost, cost;
hit, hit, hit;
put, put, put.
(ii) Change the -d of the Present into - in the Past and the Past Participle:
bend, bent, bent ;
build, built, built;
lend, lent, lent;
send, sent, sent;
spend, spent, spent etc.
(iii) Only shorten the vowel in the Past Tense and the Past Participle:
bleed, bled, bled;
feed, fed, fed ;
meet, met, met.
The decisive mark of the strong conjugation is, therefore, not the vowel thange, but the absence of the suffix "d" or "t" in the Past Tense.
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