Search results for 'tag:Conditionals tag:helping verbs' matching tags 'Conditionals' and 'helping verbs'

Re: How many tenses in English?

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 17:24:59 GMT

Pemmican wrote:
As far as I know, there are these 13 tenses:

a) Past Perfect Progressive ........................had been + present participle
b) Past Perfect ..........................................had + past participle
c) Past Progressive ...................................was/were + present participle
d) Simple Past ..........................................past tense form

e) Present Perfect Progressive ...................have/has been + present participle
f) Present Perfect .....................................have/has + past participle

g)Present Progressive .................................am/is/are + present participle
h)Simple Present ........................................present tense form = almost same form as infinitive (except "to be"); when used with he/she/it: +(e)s (except modal helping verbs)

i)will-Future ...............................................will + infinitive
j)will-Future Progressive .............................will be + present participle
k)will-Future Perfect ...................................will have + past participle
l)will-Future Perfect Progressive ..................will have been + present participle

m)Going-to-Future ......................................am/is/are going to + infinitive

Sometimes, the Conditionals are also said to be tenses, but those are just modi of an actual tense, no tenses themselves.

Re: Are grammar rules helpful to non-native speakers

Pemmican — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 21:51:40 GMT

Hello Xavier,

you're right of course: Communication is one of the tasks of language.
The Grammar is "late": Language follows special patterns (word order, inflection, cases, conjugation, etc) - language has to follow those patterns as without them, communication wouldn't be possible.
The only reason why you understand what I say is: you know the language-structure.
This structure works without any problems for your native language. For languages that you learn(ed) later, you need to know its structure to a certain level ---> GRAMMARS "filter out" these structures , show you HOW components are set together and how the whole complex works.

Grammar therefore is necessary for anyone who learns a foreign language but also for those who want to know how their native language works. It is very helpful to know about the Grammar of your native language, too, as comparing special aspects can show you where difficulties are.

As Ancient Greek grammars (and also Latin grammars later on) had a huge influence also on Germanic languages like English, they also took over some grammatic features that haven't existed originally in Germanic languages.
You mentioned the tenses e.g.:
Germanic languages originally had TWO tenses only,
The PAST-Tense and the NON-PAST-Tense
(= today's Simple Past and Simple Present tense)

Everything could be expressed with these two tenses as the simple Present wasn't and still isn't only used for events that take place in the actual present, but also for general facts and truths (=It SNOWS a lot in Sweden), for events that happen in the future (=The train LEAVES at 4 o'clock), etc.

Beside the indicative mood, the Germanic languages also have a conjunctive (also: subjunctive) mood which describes events and happenings as irreal.

All other tenses and also the conditional-mood have been constructed and base on Greek and Latin Grammars (e.g. the Perfect tenses and the Future tenses). That is btw why these tenses have to be paraphrased in English by a helping verb and the participle or infinitive of the main verb, while the original Past and Present tenses consist of the conjugated full verb only.

So you're correct that the traditional Grammar originally came over from Greece, but no matter what language you learn, you need to know about its structure - and this structure is explained in Grammars.

I hope I could help you a bit.

Cheers
-Pemmican

Re: Modals

pemmican — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 20:18:29 GMT

I don't really understand the question either...

Konstantin, you're referring to the Conditional with your German example.
Indirect speech in German works differently as the Conjunctive has to be used in formal German, which however, can be replaced by the Conditional (would+infinitive).

In English, the tenses have to be shiftes back from direct to indirect speech - .... but NOW - that I've been thinking about this, I might have got an idea of what maj's question aimed at:

The modals "can" and "may" only occur in their forms in simple present and simple past tense, "must" is used in simple present tense only. Now, if you have a sentence including one of these modals, that need to be shifted back, you've to use substitute forms for all of these three modal helping verbs:

Linda: "He can speak English" -------- Linda said he "was able to" (could) speak English.
Linda: "He could speak English" ------ Linda said he "had been able to" speak English.

Linda: "He may go" -------------------- Linda said he "was allowed to" (might) go.
Linda: "He might go" ------------------ Linda said he "had been allowed to" go.

Linda: "He must leave" ----------------- Linda said he "had to" leave.
Linda: "He had to leave" --------------- Linda said he "had had to" leave.

("might" and "could" are commonly usually used as conjunctive forms though, but can express past tense also)

As you can see in these examples, some modals cannot appear in their own forms in special indirect sentences, so maybe that was the problem, maj was aiming at?!

Hope I could help...

Re: How many tenses in English?

Pemmican — Thu, 21 Aug 2003 19:10:51 GMT

As far as I know, there are these 13 tenses:

a) Past Perfect Progressive ........................had been + present participle
b) Past Perfect ..........................................had + past participle
c) Past Progressive ...................................was/were + present participle
d) Simple Past ..........................................past tense form

e) Present Perfect Progressive ...................have/has been + present participle
f) Present Perfect .....................................have/has + past participle

g)Present Progressive .................................am/is/are + present participle
h)Simple Present ........................................present tense form = almost same form as infinitive (except "to be"); when used with he/she/it: +(e)s (except modal helping verbs)

i)will-Future ...............................................will + infinitive
j)will-Future Progressive .............................will be + present participle
k)will-Future Perfect ...................................will have + past participle
l)will-Future Perfect Progressive ..................will have been + present participle

m)Going-to-Future ......................................am/is/are going to + infinitive

Sometimes, the Conditionals are also said to be tenses, but those are just modi of an actual tense, no tenses themselves.