English Grammar Tenses

Introduction:

The word Tense is derived from Latin word “tempus” which means time. The literal meaning of tense is time. A verb indicates the time of an action, event or condition by changing its form. So it is mainly related with time. The Tense are categorized into three parts.

1. Past Tense
2. Present Tense
3. Future Tense

Past Tense.

Past tense expresses an action, event or situation that began and was completed at a particular moment of time in the past.

Present Tense.

As its name suggest, Present tense expresses an unchanging, repeated or reoccurring action, event or situations, an action that is either recurring, habitual or a general truth, a so called eternal verity.

Future Tense.

Future tense expresses an action or situation that will occur in the future. The future tense expresses what will happen or what the subject will do at some time in the future. The future tense is also used after conjunctions of time to refer to future actions.

Each of the basic tenses is further subdivided into four categories to describe the exact timing in that tense.

1. Indefinite or simple
2. Continuous or progressive
3. Perfect
4. Perfect continuous

The total Number of tenses are twelve.

Present Tense.

1. Present indefinite
2. Present continuous
3. Present perfect
4. Present perfect continuous

Past Tense.

1. Past indefinite
2. Past continuous
3. Past perfect
4. Past perfect continuous

Future Tense.

1. Future indefinite
2. Future continuous
3. Future perfect
4. Future perfect continuous