what is tenses and whay=t are the kinds of tenses

  • 0

The time of averb's action or state of being, such as present or past.

Many contemporarylinguistsequate tense

  • "English . . . has only oneinflectionalform to express time: thepast tensemarker (typically-ed), as inwalked, jumped,andsaw. There is therefore a two-way tense contrast in English:I walkvs.I walked--present tense vs past tense. English has no future tense ending, but uses a wide range of other techniques to express future time (such aswill/shall, be going to, be about to,and future adverbs). The linguistic facts are uncontroversial. However, people find it extremely difficult to drop the notion of'future tense'(and related notions, such as imperfect, future perfect, and pluperfect tenses) from their mental vocabulary, and to look for other ways of talking about the grammatical realities of the English verb."(David Crystal,The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003)
  • "Some grammarians define atenseas an inflection of the verb--a change of meaning you achieve by altering the form of the verb. So the past tense ofwiniswon. In this sense, English has only two tenses, present and past. But for everyday use--especially for those who are studying foreign languages--this strict definition of tense is not very helpful. There is a broader use of the word [tense]: a form of theverb phrasewhich gives information aboutaspectand time."(John Seely,Grammar for Teachers. Oxpecker, 2007)
  • "Traditionally,tenseis defined in terms of time. But labels such as past, present, and future tense are misleading, since the relationship between the tenses is more complicated than the labels suggest. Past and present tenses can be used in some circumstances to refer to future time (e.g.If he came tomorrow . . ., If he comes tomorrow . . .), present tenses can refer to the past (as in newspaperheadlines, e.g.Minister resigns . . ., and incolloquialnarrative, e.g.So she comes up to me and says . . .), and so on."(Sylvia Chalker and Edmund Weiner,Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 1994)
  • Tense and Aspect"Traditional grammariansand modernlinguistshave approached this complicated area of languages with slightly different terminological conventions. What many traditional grammarians label as various kinds of 'tense,' modern linguists split into two different ideas, namely:Tense, which is strictly to do with WHEN something happened or was the case;Aspect, which is concerned with factors such as the DURATION or COMPLETENESS of events and states of affairs.For English, this difference of terminology comes out mainly in relation to theperfectand theprogressive, which many traditional grammarians would treat as part of the system of tense, but modern linguists treat as belonging to the system of aspect."(James R. Hurford,Grammar: A Student's Guide. Cambridge University Press, 1994)"Tenseand aspect have risen to some prominence withinlinguisticsin recent decades as various theories have taken first the verb and then theinflectionalsystem associated with it to be the central component of theclause. This has manifested itself most obviously insyntaxandmorphology, but the effort to understand the meaning and use of time-related expressions has coincidentally played a significant role in the development of new theories ofsemanticsandpragmatics, and those theories, in turn, have prompted further research into tense and aspect. . . ."Almost every area of linguistics, with the exception ofphoneticsandphonology, has its own approach to tense and aspect. Not only do morphology, syntax, semantics, andpragmaticsdiffer in their terminology and methodology, but each area has its own distinctProblematik--they naturally seek to answer quite different questions where tense and aspect are concerned."(Robert I. Binnick, "Introduction."The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect. Oxford

s with theinflectionalcategories of a verb. English maintains an inflectional distinction only between thepresent(for example,laughorleave) and thepast(laughed,left). (See Observations, below.)

  • 0

Tenses are a part of grammar that indicate the time when the action of the verb takes place. Whether the action took place in past, is happening now or will happen in the future is indicated by the tense used in the sentence.

The verb that refers to an action in present time is said to be in present tense. The verb that refers to an action in past time is said to be in past tense. The verb that refers to an action in future time is said to be in future tense.

Thus, there are three main tenses: present, past and future.

All tenses have four forms.

In present tense:

I read. [Simple Present]

I am reading. [Present Continuous]

I have read; [Present Perfect]

I have been reading. [Present Perfect Continuous]

In sentence 1, the verb shows that the action is mentioned simply, without anything being said about the completeness or incompleteness of the action.

In sentence 2, the verb shows that the action is mentioned as incomplete or continuous, that is, still going on.

In sentence 3, the verb shows that the action is mentioned as finished, complete, or perfect, at the time of speaking.

In sentence 4, the verb is present perfect continuous as the verb shows that the action is going on continuously, and not completed at this present time.

Similarly, the forms change in past tense as:

I read; [Simple Past]

I was reading; [Past Continuous]

I had read; [Past Perfect]

I had been reading. [Past Perfect Continuous]

Also, in future tense, the forms are:

I shall/will read; [Simple Future]

I shall/will be reading; [Future Continuous]

I shall/will have read; [Future Perfect]

I shall have been reading. [Future Perfect Continuous]
  • 0
What are you looking for?