why only 2 tenses in english?

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Anonymous

#335543 Sun, 04 Mar 07 01:50 PM

why do some grammarians claim there are only 2 tenses in english: the simple present and the simple past?

Anonymous

Simple present, Tenses, Simple past

spinnaker

#335547 Sun, 04 Mar 07 02:11 PM

I don't know. That makes to me no sense.
By the way: present simple and past simple

spinnaker

Joined on Sat, Apr 23 2005

Regular Member (767)

Tenses, Past simple, Present simple

Case Assigner

#335550 Sun, 04 Mar 07 02:29 PM

Linguists claim that there are only two "real" tenses because a tense is defined by having an inflected verb. This is only the case in Simple Present and Simple Past. The other ones can be derived by adding "going-to", or "will", or "had". That´s why linguists claim that there are only two tenses. By the way, German has got three "real" tenses.

Case Assigner

Joined on Sun, Feb 25 2007

Germany

Junior Member (99)

You found mistakes in my post? Please notify me Smile [:)]

Thx a lot.

Simple present, Verbs, Tenses, Simple past

spinnaker

#335552 Sun, 04 Mar 07 02:43 PM

That's possible. But I've got a question. Aren't the tenses called past simple or present simple? I've never heard simple past...

spinnaker

Tenses, Simple past, Past simple, Present simple

Case Assigner

#335553 Sun, 04 Mar 07 02:48 PM

Well, both notions are possible for these tenses. You often find Past Simple or Simple Past in grammars. In Germany we often call these tenses Simple Past and Simple Present..... I think it´s only a matter of different names describing the same phenomena. Well, not really different names Smile [:)]

Case Assigner

Simple present, Tenses, Simple past, Past simple

spinnaker

#335590 Sun, 04 Mar 07 04:45 PM

OK thanks. As a matter of fact, it's nothing else.

spinnaker

Tenses