In Present tenses^x, Auxiliaries^x, Past tenses^x

1. Well, "had" is the past tense of the verb "have", but I think you're asking specifically about its use as an auxiliary to form the past perfect tense of other verbs: I played -- simple past tense I have played -- present perfect tense I had played -- past perfect (or...

I am come has its roots deep in the history of the English language. In Old English (1200 years ago) there were only two tenses, the present tense and the preterite. The present tense was used to express the future as well and the preterite had the meaning of the modern past tense, continuous...

Yoong Liat wrote: What is be? Is it simple Present tense form, Past Participle or what? According to the Collins Cobuild English Usage, be is the most common verb in English. It is used in many different ways. The present tense forms of 'be' are am, are and is, and the past tense forms are...

What is be? Is it simple Present tense form, Past Participle or what? According to the Collins Cobuild English Usage, be is the most common verb in English. It is used in many different ways. The present tense forms of 'be' are am, are and is, and the past tense forms are was and were. Be is...

One such grammatical distinction causing much confusion is the use of the modal auxiliaries ‘may’ and ‘might’. When used in the present tense, the two modals are almost transposable, as the difference between the two is merely a very small degree of certainty. However, it has become common...

I always thought it was a remnant of the French (Norman Invasion, 1066). There is a handful of verbs in French conjugated with "to be" rather than "to have" in the passé composé (past) tense. Rise, born, arrive, leave, go (all "coming and going" verbs) are some examples. We also sing "He is...

Yoong Liat wrote:"I had no idea there are so many Japanese language schools here...""I had no idea there were so many Japanese language schools here..." The first sentence is correct because the sentence starts with "I had" ( a verb in the past tense). You say "I didn't know you were here"...

Hi, In general while speaking, we say " what he did was......." According to grammer rule, if we use 'did` next verb will be in present tense ... like "Did you get that book ?" No, 'get' here is not present tense, it is the infinitive. Here, it is used with the auxiliary 'did' to make past...

Mary Ansell has a chapter on the subjunctive mood at http://www.fortunecity.com/bally/durrus/153/gramch09.html. One of the complications in using the subjunctive is the fact that, besides hypothetical condition clauses, which require the subjunctive, there are factual condition clauses that do...

When he returns to Manhattan 1000 years later it has been destroyed and rebuilt three times 2 What