Aston Tome dos Santos

Aurélio Coutinho Namauna

Benjamim Pedro Gemusse

Calisto M. A. E. Aurélio

Evaristo Gabriel Cumprido

Jonas A.N. M. Maliango

Justino Rafael Chitace

Tenses

Present, Past and Future

Honour Degree in English Language Teaching

Universidade Pedagógica

Mocuba
 2018

Aston Tome dos Santos

Aurélio Coutinho Namauna

Benjamim Pedro Gemusse

Calisto M. A. E. Aurélio

Evaristo Gabriel Cumprido

Jonas A.N. M. Maliango

Justino Rafael Chitace

Tenses

Present, Past and Future

Honour Degree in English Language Teaching

Assignment of English
Language IV subject, to be
submitted and evaluate by
lecturer:

Dr Hélio Chichango

Universidade Pedagógica

Mocuba
2018
Content page

Introduction..................................................................................................................................4

Past Tense....................................................,...............................................................................5

Past Continuous...........................................................................................................................5

Past Perfect..................................................................................................................................6

Past Perfect Continuous.............................................................................................................6

Present Tense..............................................................................................................................6

Present Simple.............................................................................................................................6

Present Continuous.....................................................................................................................7

Present Perfect............................................................................................................................7

Present Perfect Continuous.......................................................................................................7

Future...........................................................................................................................................8

Simple future Tense...................................................................................................................8

Future Continuous Tense..........................................................................................................8

Future Perfect.............................................................................................................................9

Future Perfect Continuous Tense.............................................................................................9

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................10

Bibliographical References...........................................................................................11
 5

Introduction

The present task talks about tenses in general. Tenses are forms of a verb that show the
time, continuance or completion of an action or a state that is expressed in connection with
the moment at which a statement is made about it. There are three main tenses: the present,
the past, and the future. For each of the tenses, there are four aspects: simple, continuous or
progressive, perfect and perfect continuous or perfect progressive. The present tense is used
to refer to something that happens or exists now. The present tense is also called the present
simple or simple present. The past tense is used to refer to something that happened or
existed in the past. The past tense is also called the past simple or simple past. The future
tense refers to something that hasn’t happened at the time of speaking. The future tense
makes use of the words will and shall. The continuous aspect indicates an unfinished action
or state of being at the time being referred to. It is formed using the relevant tense of the
auxiliary verb to be and the present participle of the main verb. The perfect aspect refers to
a completed action in the present, past or future. It is formed using the combination of the
relevant tense of the auxiliary verb have and the past participle of the main verb. The
perfect continuous aspect combines both aspects of continuous and perfect. It refers to an
action that has continued up to the present, up to a time in the past, or up to a time in the
future. The three verb tenses and four verb aspects make possible the twelve combinations
of tense and aspect.

Past Tense
 6

There are two tenses in English – past and present.

The past tense in English is used:

To talk about the past;

To talk about hypotheses, things that are imagined rather than true;

For politeness.

There are four past tense forms in English:

1- Past Simple

The simple past tense, sometimes called the preterite, is used to talk about a completed
action in a time before now. The simple past is the basic form of past tense in English. The
time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past and action duration is not
important.

E.g. : John Cabot sailed to America in 1498.

My father died last year.

2- Past continuous
To talk about a temporary situation that existed at or around a particular time in the past, we
use the past continuous:

• At the time of the robbery, they were staying with my parents.

When we talk about two past actions or events that went on over the same period of time,
we can often use the past continuous for both:

• Sally was reading to the children while Kevin was washing up.

The past continuous can also be used when we want to emphasize that the repeated actions
only went on for a limited and temporary period of past time:

3- Past perfect
 7

We use the past perfect to talk about a past situation or activity that took place before
another past situation or activity, or before a particular time in the past:

• Jo discovered that Leslie had lied to her.

4- Past perfect continuous

We use the past perfect continuous when we talk about a situation or activity that happened
over a period up to a particular past time, or until shortly before it.

• She had been suffering from flu when she was interviewed.

Present tense

There are two tenses in English: past and present.

The present tense is used to talk about the present and to talk about the future.

There are four present tense forms:

1- Present Simple

The present Simple is a verb tense with two main uses. We use the simple present tense
when an action is happening right now, or when it happens regularly (or unceasingly, which
is why it’s sometimes called present indefinite). Depending on the person, the simple
present tense is formed by using the root form or by adding -es or -oes to the end.

Example:

I feel great! Pauline loves pie. I’m sorry to hear that you’re sick.

The other is to talk about habitual actions or occurrences.

2- Present continuous

We use the present continuous and going to + infinitive to talk about future activities and
events that are intended or have already been arranged:
 8

• She's making a speech at the conference next week.

• Are you seeing Tony this week? (= do you have an arrangement to see him?)

3- Present perfect

We use the present perfect when we talk about something that happened in a period of time
up to the present. We use the past simple to talk about something that happened at a
particular, finished time in the past. Compare:

• Science has made many major advances this century, and

• Scientists made some fundamental discoveries in the 18th century.

4- Present perfect continuous

We use both the present perfect continuous and the present perfect to talk about something
that started in the past and which affects the situation that exists now. The difference is that
the present perfect continuous focuses on the activity or event which may or may not be
finished. The present perfect, however, focuses on the effect of the activity or event, or the
fact that something has been achieved.

Sometimes the difference between them is simply one of emphasis:

• I've been following their discussions with great interest, (emphasizes the activity; that is,
my following their discussions).

• I've followed their discussions with great interest, (emphasizes the result; I may now
react to what was said or decided).

Future

There are a number of different ways of referring to the future in English. It is important to
remember that we are expressing more than simply the time of the action or event.
 9

Obviously, any 'future' tense will always refer to a time 'later than now', but it may also
express our attitude to the future event.

There are four future tense forms in English:

1- Simple Future Tense

The simple future is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that have not happened
yet.

Example:

This year, Jen will read War and Peace. It will be hard, but she’s determined to do it.

2- Future continuous tense

We can use the future perfect continuous to emphasize how long something has been going
on by a particular point in the future:

• On Saturday, we will have been living in this house for a year.

• Next year I will have been working in the company for 30 years.

In sentences with the future perfect continuous we usually mention both the particular point
in

the future ('On Saturday...', 'Next year...') and the period of time until this point ('...for a
year',

'...for 20 years'). Notice that we don't usually use the future perfect continuous with verbs
describing states:

• Next month I will have known Derek for 20 years, (not ...will have been knowing...)9.
 10

3- Future perfect

We use the future perfect to say that something will be ended, completed, or achieved by a
particular point in the future:

• Let's hope the volcanic eruption will have finished before we arrive on the island.

• Although people are now angry about what he did, I'm sure that his behavior will soon
have been forgotten.

• By the time you get home I will have cleaned the house from top to bottom.

Notice that we can use other modal verbs instead of will to talk about the future in a less
certain way:

• By the time you get home I will/may/should have cleaned the house.

4- Future perfect continuous tense

We can use the future perfect continuous to emphasize how long something has been going
on by a particular point in the future:

• On Saturday, we will have been living in this house for a year.

• Next year I will have been working in the company for 30 years.
 11

Conclusion

In the previous sections tense has been discussed in terms of its general characteristics and
its various uses in referencing present, past, and future time. As has been previously
covered, tense is not a generic term for time in language nor is it the only time element with
which linguists are concerned. Instead it is one of five universal attributes of language used
to convey time information. The other attributes (aspect, mood, perfection, and aktionsart)
are inherently tied to tense and the relationship of all five are so intertwined that each can
rarely be discussed without consideration of all of them together. Tense is however a very
straight forward concept. It is purely a manner of expressing the contrast between two
temporal references on the timeline of an utterance. Some resources describe tense as either
relative or absolute, yet while the dual systems proposed are incorrect, there is some merit
to this idea.
Finally, it should be remembered that tense is only this contrast between temporal
references of the utterance. It is an attribute of an utterance as a whole and not any part
within. Tense of an utterance can only be described in terms of present, past, and future,
and degrees thereof. It is thus correct to say present tense, but not present perfect, present
simple, or present progressive. Present perfect refers to the idea that an utterance is in
present tense and is perfected, present simple refers to an utterance in the present tense,
simple (a generic name for non-durational aspects) aspect, nonperfected; likewise present
progressive refers to a non-perfected, durational aspect utterance in the present tense.
These terms all refer to the same single tense however — the present.
 12

Bibliographical References

Advanced English Grammar in Use, Unities 1-15

A Practical English Grammar, pages 153-165; 180-204

English Grammar soft for life. app

https//learnenglish.britishcouncil.org

https//www.ef.com>english resources

www.grammarly.com.blog

www.grammar.cl>english

www.learngrammar.net.english