Search results for 'tag:Present tenses tag:Inflections' matching tags 'Present tenses' and 'Inflections'

Re: subjunctive or simple present in spoken english

AlpheccaStars — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:31:48 GMT

Well, Velimir, some (native) speakers are very sloppy (or forgot their grammar lessons) and use the present tense instead of the correct subjunctive mood..

In formal writing, the authors are usually more careful to use the subjunctive.

I have the feeling that subjenctive mood may eventually go out of the language. That's because English has been continuously losing inflections over its history...

Re: When -s forms should be used ?

AlpheccaStars — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 19:22:11 GMT

Panesh:

Sunrise (one word) is a noun.In your sentence, the word "rise" is a verb, not a noun. Every sentence must have a verb.

English used to be a highly inflected language. Over the centuries, the inflections have been changed or lost. The addition of -s in third person singular, present tense is one of the verb inflections that still remain in the language

Also the ending 's and s' is used to mean possessive case (nouns), and the ending -s (nouns) to mean plural.

Mary cooks dinner. (cook is the verb)

Mary Cook's dinner (Mary Cook is her name. It is her dinner. This is not a sentence, because there is no verb.)

Joe's Cars (a business name) gives good deals to the customers. (the verb is give, deal is a noun in the plural)

Joe deals in cars. This site deals with various topics. (deals is the verb, present tense, 3rd person singular)

Re: English teaching sites

Yoong Liat — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:56:28 GMT

Guest
How do you explain what a irregular verb is to entry 1 esol students?

Main Entry:	irregular verb
Part of Speech:	n
Definition:	any verb whose past tense and past participle are not formed by adding -ed, -d, or -t to the present tense, a verb that does not follow the general rules of inflection

Examples of irregular verbs are sing (past tense sang); feel (felt); and go (went).

Re: Spelling of Plural noun /vs/ the Third-person-singular verb inflection.

CalifJim — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:07:21 GMT

All the rules for adding S are the same for plurals as for third-person singular present tense verbs, including the words that end in y.

That said, there are a few exceptions that you will encounter from time to time, for example, words that end in f or fe. There are so few that you can just make a mental note of them when you encounter them.

Noun: loaf, loaves
Verb: loaf, loafs
Noun: knife, knives
Verb: knife, knifes

CJ

Re: Subjunctive?

Cool Breeze — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 15:45:57 GMT

Your sentences are not very good English as they contain grammatical mistakes. If I understand you right, you are asking whether need not + infinitive is a subjunctive. No, it isn't. Need in the present tense can be made negative in two ways:

1. He need not go there.
2. He doesn't need/have to go there.

In the first sentence need is an indicative present tense even though there is no third person singular inflection (s). In the second sentence does is in the present tense and need is a plain/bare infinitive, or an infinitive without to.

In the past tense we normally say:
He didn't need/have to go there.

CB

Re: will/would

Cool Breeze — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 09:41:17 GMT

New2grammar wrote:
So you are saying the 'if' usage does not automatically make a sentence subjunctive? Can you give me a couple of examples in different contexts where 'if' is not subjunctive?

Certainly, New2grammar:

1. I showed him some pictures yesterday. If he liked a picture, he would nod.
2. I used to take long walks in the evenings in those days but if I was tired, I just watched television.

An average English verb has only four forms written as one word (ask, asks, asking, asked) and therefore the indicative and subjunctive are often the same. This makes it easy for a learner but can result in ambiguity sometimes. You will have noticed that even native speakers argue on these forums about the meanings of, say, will or shall in some sentences.

In English, context is often of paramount importance. In many other languages that have more inflections, the meaning is clear and unambiguous without context. I am best familiar with my native language, Finnish. Just to say something in the indicative in the present tense in all the six grammatical persons (I, you, he, we, you, they), 13 different forms of the verb are needed. Another 13 verb forms are needed for the past tense etc. Consequently the problem discussed in this thread couldn't arise in Finnish.

Cheers
CB

Re: Native-speaker intuition.

Cool Breeze — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 08:36:44 GMT

Englishuser wrote:
A non-native speaker who has immersed himself or herself with highbrow literature written in a foreign language could very well have a more vivid vocabulary and a better knowledge of the grammar of the language than the average native speaker. At least as far as the 'standard version' of the language is concerned.

Englishuser

Hi Englishuser

I agree, learning the grammar of a language can be relatively easy for a person who is familiar with the grammatical structures of his native language. As far as I am concerned, English grammar was a piece of cake for me even though it differs considerably from Finnish grammar. It was easy because there is so little of it; an English word has very few forms: write, writes, writing, wrote, written. That's all there is written as single words. Of course has written, having written etc. exist in addition to the five basic forms.

However, in Finnish, for instance, you need six forms just to say something affirmative in the present tense, a different inflection for every person (I, you, he, we, you, they). You need another six forms to ask a question etc. Nouns have more than a hundred forms and an adjective has hundreds of inflected forms. Some English people have said to me they don't belive me when I say that. That's because they think the languages they may have some knowledge of, usually German or French, are as complicated in structure as a language can be. They know of nothing else.

What is difficult about English are the countless idioms and spelling.

By the way, when I am abroad I try not to sound British or American even though I have been told that I am able to mimic the American accent quite well. Finland was never a major country in world politics or colonization and I often get good service just because people don't really know anything about my country. They have no preconceived notions.

I was once having a drink in a hotel bar in New Orleans. The man sitting next to me asked me: "Where do you come from?" I said: "Finland." He said: "Which state is it in?" So I got wise and a couple of days later when a fiftyish woman asked me the same question, I said: "I'm from Europe." Her face lit up: "That's marvelous! I've got relatives in the same country."

Cheers
CB

HAS/HAVE/HAD/IN/ON/WAS/WERE

Bluecross — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 08:06:49 GMT

hi greetings from the philippines !!!

I need your help on the following. I don't think my English is all that bad, but I frequently get confused when trying to use the following verbs. A detailed description with examples is as follows:

She has to go. (Present)
She had to go. (Past)

May I come in?
Might I come in?

On the table
In the table
At the table

That is mine- present tense?
That was mine - pastense?

both are correct right????

But then again, the kind of "inflection" we're concerned about in this discussion is temporal in nature, and not morphological in form. That is, if it's not called "inflection", then what is it called? Is there a difference between run/ran and has to/had to, and if not, is has to/had to not a true modal? Moreover, why is it that in order to get "could" to bend time, we have to negate it?

bluecross

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: When to use would and when to use could

paco2004 — Sun, 06 Mar 2005 03:42:56 GMT

Hi Cacarr

OED says about 'tense' as :any one of the different forms of a verb which indicate the different times at which the action or state denoted by it is viewed as happening or existing. It also says about 'inflection' as: the modification of the form of a word to express the different grammatical relations.

And the dictionary gives the inflections to as follows:

Present tense I can, thou canst, one can, we can, you can, they can
Past tense I could, thou couldst, one could, we could, you could, they could

Present tense I can, thou can, one can, we can, you can, they can
Past tense I could, thou couldst, one could, we could, you could, they could

paco