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Verbs in the English language are a part of speech and typically describe an action, an event, or a state. While English has many irregular verbs (see a list), for the regular ones the conjugation rules are quite straightforward. Being partially analytic, English regular verbs are not strongly inflected; all tenses, aspects, moods, and voices except the simple present and the simple past are periphrastic, formed with auxiliary verbs and modals.
A regular English verb has only one principal part, from which all the forms of the verb can be derived. This is the bare form, and is shown in dictionaries. All other forms of a regular verb can be derived straightforwardly from this, for a total of four forms. For example, the bare form "exist" produces the forms exist, exists (third person singular present), existed (past tense (preterite) and past participle), existing (present participle). Each of these can be used in a variety of grammatical contexts.
Another class of verbs, strong verbs, have three principal parts. For example:
| Part | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | infinitive | write |
| 2 | preterite | wrote |
| 3 | past participle | written |
This gives a total of five forms (write, writes, wrote, written, writing).
Some irregular weak verbs have two principal parts (e.g., send (infinitive), sent (preterite and past participle)). Additionally, the verbs do, say, and have have irregular forms in the present tense third-person singular (although the first two are only irregular in speech): do /du:/ becomes does /dʌz/; say /seɪ/ becomes says /sɛz/ (in most accents); have /hæv/ becomes has /hæz/).
The highly irregular copular verb to be has eight forms: be (infinitive), am (first person singular present), is (third person singular present), are (in second person singular and all persons plural, present), being (present participle), was (first and third persons singular preterite), were (preterite in second person singular and all persons plural), and been (past participle) (in addition to the archaic forms art, wast, wert, and beest), of which only one (being) is derivable as a regular inflection of the bare form.
The following are uses of the bare form:
The third person singular in regular verbs in English is distinguished by the suffix -s. In English spelling, this -s is added to the stem of the infinitive form: run → runs.
If the base ends in one of the sibilant sounds (/s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/), and its spelling does not end in a silent E, the suffix is written -es: buzz → buzzes; catch → catches. If the base ends in a consonant plus y, the y changes to an i and -es is affixed to the end: cry → cries. Verbs ending in o typically add -es: veto → vetoes.
Regardless of spelling, the pronunciation of the third person singular ending in most dialects follows regular rules:
The third person singular present indicative in English is notable cross-linguistically for being a morphologically marked form for a semantically unmarked one. That is to say, the third person singular is usually taken to be the most basic form in a given verbal category and as such, according to markedness theory, should have the simplest of forms in its paradigm. This is clearly not the case with English where the other persons exhibit the bare root and nothing more.
In Early Modern English, some dialects distinguished the third person singular with the suffix -th; after consonants this was written -eth, and some consonants were doubled when this was added: run → runneth.
English preserves a number of preterite-present verbs, such as can and may. These verbs lack a separate form for the third person singular: she can, she may. All surviving preterite-present verbs in modern English are auxiliary verbs. The verb will, although historically not a preterite-present verb, is uninflected like one when used as an auxiliary; by a process of levelling it has become regular when it is a full verb: Whatever she wills to happen will make life annoying for everyone else.
The preterite form is used in all persons and numbers as the finite verb in a clause, typically to talk about the past.
It can also be used in a dependent clause to indicate that a present-time situation is hypothetical:
In spelling, the regular preterite is formed by adding ed to the bare form (play → played). The normal rules for adding suffixes beginning with a vowel apply. Hence if the bare form ends in the letter e then only d is added (like → liked). If the bare form ends in a consonant followed by y, then it is changed to an i before adding the ed
Various rules apply for doubling final consonants. If the bare form ends in a single vowel followed by a single consonant (except h, silent t, w, x and y), then unless the final syllable is completely unstressed, the consonant is doubled before adding the -ed (ship → shipped, but fathom → fathomed). For most bare forms ending in c then ck is used to effect the doubling (panic → panicked, bivouac → bivouacked, and this occurs regardless of stress. Note that both zincked and zinced are typically considered acceptable, however arcked is less common. Also note spec → specced, but sometimes spec'ed. Also sync → synched is recognized by some dictionaries). In British English the l is typically doubled even when the final syllable is unstressed: travel → travelling, and when two separately-pronounced vowels precede the l: dial → dialled, fuel → fuelled).
If the final syllable has some partial stress, especially for compound words, the consonsant is usually doubled: backflip → backflipped , hobnob → hobnobbed, kidnap → kidnapped etc. In some cases both alternatives are acceptable, e.g. dialog → dialoged or dialogged, gambol → gambolled, hiccup → hiccupped or hiccuped, program → programed or programmed. Note however catalog → cataloged and pyramid → pyramided. Other variations not entirely consistent with these rules include bus → bused or bussed, bias → biased or biassed and focus → focused or focussed.
In speech, three situations are distinguished:
In regular weak verbs, the past participle is always the same as the preterite.
Irregular verbs may have separate preterites and past participles; see List of English irregular verbs.
The present participle is formed by adding the suffix -ing to the base form: go → going.
The ending in most dialects is pronounced /ɪŋ/, and the pronunciation of the root does not change.
If the base ends in silent e, the e is dropped: believe → believing.
If the e is not silent, the e is retained: agree → agreeing.
If the base ends in -ie, the ie is changed to y: lie → lying.
If the final consonant is doubled to form the past preterite, including c → ck (see above), it is also doubled before adding the ing: dab → dabbing.
Some exceptions include forms such as singeing, ageing, rueing, cacheing and whingeing, where the e may be retained to avoid confusion with otherwise identical words (e.g. singing), to clarify pronunciation (for example to show that a word has a soft g or ch), or for aesthetic reasons.
NB: Other words also end in -ing, notably certain nouns formed from verbs (verbal nouns) and the gerund. These are usually considered different entities. However, since there is a lack of consensus for this view, these are considered here.
The English gerund is that form of a verb that acts as a noun but retains its identity as a verb. Since it has different properties from the Verbal noun in -ing (below) these two forms are usually, but not always, considered to be separate entities. The gerund has indeed been dubbed a Nounal verb to help distinguish these two uses of the -ing form, but this term is not normal.
NB: Contentious
There are several possessive forms in English: possessive pronoun, possessive determiner, and the possessive case of nouns. The first governs or is governed by a verb, not a noun: This book is mine [not Mine book]. The second governs or is governed by a noun (or a word acting as a noun), not a verb: my book [not This book is my]. The last can govern or be governed by either: This is Helen's book (noun) or This book is Helen's (verb). Furthermore, there is the personal pronoun which also governs or is governed by verbs, not nouns: he saw her [not he saw she].
Since the gerund is technically a verb not a noun it might seem reasonable to assume that it should govern or be governed by a personal pronoun or a possessive pronoun. However, this is not usually accepted as correct because the gerund is in fact acting as a noun while retaining verbal properties. Hence, we have as standard English:
In the first construction, reading is used as a true gerund. The second construction is often disallowed by grammars and the use of the word reading is given names like fused participle and geriple[1] since it is seen to confuse a participle with a gerund. The alternate view is to see it as a genuine particle governing a personal pronoun in the objective case (as well as a nouns as an indirect object), but this is not typical.
It is more often argued, however, that both of the following are correct but with different meanings:
The first example seems to imply that Jim does not like my presence in a vehicle that flies whether I am in control of that vehicle or am merely a passenger. Again, this is seen as a participle but this time only governing a direct object without an indirect object. The second example seems to comment on my abilities to control the vehicle rather than my presence in the plane. The second is again a true gerund. It could be rewritten:
The controversy extends to the use of the possessive case in nouns:
The use of the possessive pronoun is probably best avoided:
As is the use of any combination of each of these:
On the history of the verb "be", see Indo-European copula.
Verbs had more forms when the pronoun thou was still in regular use and there was a number distinction in the second person. To be, for instance, had art, wast and wert.
Irregular verbs in English come from several historical sources; some are technically strong verbs (i.e., their forms display specific vowel changes of the type known as ablaut in linguistics); others have had various phonetic changes or contractions added to them over the history of English.
English verbs possess a number of properties that make them somewhat unusual among other Germanic languages. All English verbs can be derived from a maximum of three principal parts. This represents an extensive paring down of the inflectional categories of the more conservative Germanic languages.
English verbs, like those in many other western European languages, have more periphrastic constructions than inflectional forms; verbal constructions beyond the ones possible with the five inflectional forms listed above are formed with auxiliary verbs, as are the passive voice variants. Important auxiliary verbs in English include will, used to form the future tense, volitional modality, or predictive modality; shall, formerly used mainly for the future tense, but now used mainly for commands and directives; be, which is used in forming the progressive aspect and passive voice; have, which is used to form the perfect tense-aspect combination; and do, which is used for negation, question formation, and intensification.
English verbs display complex forms of negation. While simple negation was used well into the period of early Modern English (Touch not the royal person!) in contemporary English negation requires that the negative particle be attached to an auxiliary verb such as do or be. Thus I go not is archaic; I do not go is the modern standard for negating the simple verb in I go, requiring the insertion of the dummy auxiliary do. When the affirmative is periphrasal (I am going), it is negated by the insertion of not (I am not going).
Like many other Western European languages, English historically allowed questions to be asked by inverting the positions of verb and subject: Whither goest thou? Modern English requires the use of the auxiliary verb do, along with inversion of the word order, to form a question from a simple (one-word) affirmative (I go → Do I go?, Where do I go?), apart from when the main verb is "be" (I am here → Am I here?, Why am I here?). When the affirmative verb is compound, a question is formed by inverting the auxiliary verb with the subject (John is going → Is John going?).
Combining the formation of a question with negation involves both insertion of do, if the verb is not already compound, and inversion of the auxiliary verb with the subject: John is going → Is John not going?; John goes → Does John not go?. However, the word not can optionally (especially in informal English) be contracted with the auxiliary verb, in which case the word order is further changed: Isn't John going?, Doesn't John go?.
English does not allow pronoun dropping, and all verbs must have an explicit subject, even where there is no specific agent. Dummy pronouns are inserted even where no agent is identifiable:
Sentences that declare the existence of something require a deictic particle to be well formed in English, such as "there":
This sentence could have two meanings, and "there" would be pronounced differently in each case. If the speaker is referring to a specific location, "there" will be pronounced /ðeər/. If they are declaring the existence of the river without saying where it is, it will be pronounced /ðɜr/.
The various constructions available in English can be presented by noting that each of the temporal spheres (past, present, future, as well as conditional) distinguishes simple constructions from those with progressive aspect, perfect aspect, or both:
| Basic | Progressive | Perfect | Perfect progressive | |
| Future | I will write | I will be writing | I will have written | I will have been writing |
| Present | I write | I am writing | I have written | I have been writing |
| Past | I wrote | I was writing | I had written | I had been writing |
| Conditional | I would write | I would be writing | I would have written | I would have been writing |
Because of the neatness of this system, modern textbooks on English generally use the terminology in this table. What was traditionally called the "perfect tense" is here called "present perfect", and the "pluperfect" becomes "past perfect". The construction with wrote which older schoolbooks sometimes called the "imperfect" is here called the "simple past". However, historical linguists sometimes prefer terminology which applies to all Germanic languages and is more helpful for comparative purposes; in this context, the terms "preterite" and "pluperfect" remain common.
Other constructions exist beyond those in the basic table above:
Other modal verbs, such as "shall" or "may", can be used in the place of "will".
| Past reference time | Present reference time | Future reference time | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Event before reference time (anterior) | I had written | I have written | I will have written |
| Event at reference time (simultaneous) | I wrote | I write/am writing | I write/will write |
| Event after reference time (posterior) | I would write | I will write | I will write |
English tenses can refer both to a reference time (past, present, or future) in which a situation takes place, and the time of a particular event relative to the reference time (before, at, or after). Not all possibilities of reference time and relative event time correspond to unique English tenses, but many do, especially in the past.
Consider, for example, the following sentences:
In a present frame of reference, the same sentences appear as follows:
The equivalent in a future frame of reference is as follows:
Note that the future construction will arrive does not directly fit into the above system. What is important about it is that the event described occurs at an absolute time in the future, not whether it occurs simultaneous with or after another event. For this reason, the construction with will can be used even in a past frame of reference to indicate an event that is unambiguously in the absolute future. For example, "When I got home yesterday, John called and said he will arrive next week" is possible, and emphasizes that the arrival is in the future (relative to the present time) even if the frame of reference is in the past. ("... said he would arrive next week" is also possible.)
Note also that in certain circumstances, the present tense form can be used to express a future event. This generally occurs only when a future frame of reference is being established, not when the reference time is already established and the relative time of the event is being expressed. For example, all of the following are possible:
In a subordinate clause introduced by when, if or whether, only the simple present tense form is possible even when referring to a future event (as in "When I get home tomorrow" but not "*When I will get home tomorrow" or "*When I am getting home tomorrow"). On the other hand, in the main clause following a subordinate when clause, after the frame of reference is already established, will usually must be used. ("When I get home tomorrow, John will arrive and meet me" but not "*When I get home tomorrow, John arrives and meets me".)
The referencing of time is very different in conditional sentences, e.g.:
The second sentence has the apparently contradictory combination of the past tense form and explicitly future reference ("tomorrow"). In this case, the switch from present to past tense form does not affect the actual time reference of the sentence, but changes it to have a contrary-to-fact meaning, i.e. it adds the additional sense of "I probably won't win the lottery tomorrow".
With present reference, the tense form use is similar:
In this case, the contrary-to-fact implication is stronger, specifically, he isn't (rather than probably isn't) buying a Lamborghini.
Finally, with past reference, all tense forms need to be moved farther into the past:
The sense of the first sentence is "I don't know if this thing happened, but if it did, then this other thing also happened." The second has the sense "This thing definitely didn't happen. But if it had happened, then this other thing would also have happened."
The simple constructions can be used to express habitual action. In many contexts they can also be used to express single completed actions.
The simple present has three main uses in English: First, it often identifies habitual or customary action referring to no specific time frame:
Second, it is used with stative verbs to refer to a present situation:
Third, it can have a future meaning in two contexts (though its use as an indicator of futurity is much less common than in many other languages):
The simple present has an intensive or emphatic construction with "do": He does write. In the negative and interrogative constructions, of course, this is identical to the non-emphatic constructions. It is typically used as a response to the question Does he write, whether that question is expressed or implied, and says that indeed, he does write.
The different syntactic behavior of the negative particle not and the negative inflectional suffix -n't in the interrogative constructions is also worth noting. In formal literary English of the sort in which contractions are avoided, not attaches itself to the main verb: Does he not write? When the colloquial contraction -n't is used, this attaches itself to the auxiliary do: Doesn't he write? This in fact is a contraction of a more archaic word order, still occasionally found in poetry: *Does not he write?
The passive voice of the simple present is formed using the simple present of to be followed by the past participle (more accurately called the passive participle in this context) of the main verb, as in
The simple past is also called the preterite.
The preterite is used for the English simple (non-iterative or iterative, but not progressive) past tense. He wrote two more chapters about the dam at Kashagawigamog Lake.
This tense is used for a single event in the past (I went there yesterday), for past habitual action (I went there every day for a year), and in chronological narration. Like the present simple, it has an emphatic variant with "do": he did write.
The simple past is distinct from the present perfect:
The preterite, when used to indicate habitual aspect, can often be replaced by a compound construction:
The passive voice of the simple past is formed by the simple past of to be followed by the past participle of the main verb, as in
English does not have a dedicated future tense in the sense of a morphological form that always indicates what the speaker views as facts about the future. The so-called simple future, often used for that purpose among others, is formed as follows:
Shall can be used in place of will in any of the above to intensify the verb. See the article Shall and Will for a discussion of the two auxiliary verbs used to form the simple future in English.
The will construction can be used to indicate what the speaker views as facts about the future:
It can also indicate a combination of futurity and intentional or volitional modality:
It can also indicate predictive modality — what the speaker intends as predictions about the future:
The will construction is occasionally used for statements about the present to indicate that they are speculative:
The will construction can be used to indicate strong volition in the present in the first person:
It can also be used to indicate habituality in the past, present and future:
There is also a future with "go" which is used with the infinitive of the action verb especially for intended actions and for the weather, and which is generally more common in colloquial speech:
The will/shall construction, however, is preferred for spontaneous decisions:
The passive voice of the basic future is formed by the simple future of to be followed by the past participle of the main verb:
An important part of the English tense system is the progressive tenses. Progressive constructions describe ongoing activity at a specific point of time or continuous activity over an extent of time. All verbal constructions can be made progressive (e.g. "I have written" → "I have been writing"), and these constructions are used extremely commonly.
The present progressive is also known as the present continuous.
An important difference between the present progressive tense in English and many other languages with similar tenses (e.g. Spanish) is that the English present progressive must be used in many circumstances. In particular, a statement about an ongoing action at the present time normally must use the progressive ("I am writing a letter now" but not "*I write a letter now"). The simple present is used in the following circumstances:
In the latter cases, the progressive is often possible, sometimes with different implications. Generally, it implies an action rather than a state, and an ongoing, often temporary situation. For example, "I am feeling lonely" and "I am seeing a bear" specifically emphasize the perception of the feeling at the current time, which is implied to be temporary.
With "have" and "be" the present progressive is even clearer in imparting a meaning of "currently ongoing action". Hence "??I am having a large car" would sound quite strange, and be almost uninterpretable, while "?I am being a doctor" still sounds strange but potentially might mean "I'm not a doctor but I'm temporarily trying to act like one". But there are a number of quite acceptable usages of progressive "have" and "be":
This construction describes the simple engagement in a present activity, with the focus on action in progress "at this very moment". It too can indicate a future, particularly when discussing plans already in place: I am flying to Paris tomorrow. Used with "always" it suggests irritation; compare He always does that (neutral) with He is always doing that (and it annoys me). Word order differs here in the negative interrogative between the more formal is he not writing and the colloquial contraction isn't he writing?
The passive voice of the present progressive is formed by the present progressive of to be followed by the past participle of the main verb, as in
The past progressive construction indicates ongoing action in the past, and is sometimes called the past continuous. It is formed by combining the preterite of to be with the present participle (the -ing form) of the main verb.
This construction is typically used for two events in parallel:
It can also be used for an interrupted action (the past simple being used for the interruption):
Further, it can be used to indicate continuing action at a specific time in the past:
Finally, this construction can be used to refer to past action that occurred over a range of time and is viewed as an ongoing situation:
The passive voice of the past progressive is formed by the past progressive of to be followed by the past participle of the main verb, as in
This construction is used especially to indicate that an event will be in progress at a particular point in the future: This time tomorrow I will / shall be taking my driving test.
The construction It will be being written is rarely used. If it is desired to express future progressivity in the passive voice, the construction It will be in the process of being written can be used.
Perfect constructions are used to express actions or events that happened before a point in time, with an emphasis on the continuing effects of these at this point of time.
The present perfect was traditionally just called the perfect.
The distinction between the past (I did) and the present perfect (I have done) can be subtle. In general, the present perfect occurs in cases where there is an explicitly or implicitly established present frame of reference. When the frame of reference is explicit, such as in the sentence "Whenever I get home, usually John has already arrived", the usage of the present perfect is clear, but in other cases it is less obvious.
This construction indicates that a past event has one of a range of possible relationships to the present. This relationship may involve a focus on present result: He has written a very fine book (and look, here it is, we have it now). Alternatively, it may indicate a period which includes the present: I have lived here since my youth (and I still do). Compare: Have you written a letter this morning? (it is still morning) with Did you write a letter this morning? (it is now afternoon). The perfect construction is frequently used with the adverbs already or recently or with since clauses. The present perfect can identify habitual and continuing actions (I have written letters since I was ten years old.), continuous and ongoing actions (I have lived here for fifteen years.), or completed actions that still affect the present situation (I have visited Paris twice (and the memory of the experience is still with me)).
In addition to these normal uses where the event is viewed from the present, the “have done” construct is used with a future perspective in temporal clauses where other languages would use the future perfect: When you have written it, show it to me.
The term "perfect" was first applied in discussions of Latin grammar, to refer to a tense which expresses a completed action ("perfect" in the sense of "finished"). It was then applied to a French tense which has a similar use to the Latin perfect, and then was transferred to the English tense which looks morphologically something like the French perfect. In fact, the English perfect is often used precisely in situations where Latin would use the imperfect — for past actions which are not finished but continue into the present.
The passive voice of the present perfect is formed by the present perfect of to be followed by the past participle of the main verb, as in
The past perfect is also known as the pluperfect; it is formed by combining the preterite of to have with the past participle of the main verb:
The pluperfect is used when the action occurred in the past before another action in the past. It is used when speaking of the past to indicate the relative time of two past actions, one occurring before the other; i.e. a "past before the past".
The past time of perspective could be stated explicitly:
or it can be understood from previous information:
The past time of perspective can simply be implied by the context:
It is sometimes possible to use the simple past instead of the past perfect, but only where there is no ambiguity in the meaning. For instance, the second example above could be written:
Understood within the above context, this still means that I first invited Jim then later ate the meal (without him).
However, concurrent past events are also possible, indicated by dual simple past tenses in both verbs. Consider the following:
This means both past events happened at the same time: he left at the same time as we arrived.
The past perfect can also be used to express a counterfactual statement about the past:
Here, the first clause refers to an unreal state in the past (without any comparison of the timing of multiple past events), and the entire construction is a conditional sentence.
The passive voice of the past perfect is formed by the past perfect of to be followed by the past participle of the main verb:
The future perfect is formed by combining, in this order, will or shall, the auxiliary verb have, and the past participle of the main verb:
It indicates an action that either is completed sometime prior to a future time of perspective or an ongoing action that continues to a future time of perspective:
The passive voice of the future perfect is formed by the future perfect of to be followed by the past participle of the main verb:
Perfect progressive constructions are used to express ongoing activity that extends to a certain point in time.
In English, the present perfect progressive can also be called the present perfect continuous.
It is used for unbroken action in the past which continues right up to the present. I have been writing this paper all morning (and still am).
The present perfect continuous is used for denoting the action which was in progress and has just finished or is still going on. For example,
Sentences referring to an expanse of time use the present perfect continuous if ongoing action (not a static situation) is referred to. For example,
However, with stative verbs (such as see, want, like, etc.), or if the situation is considered permanent, the present perfect non-progressive construction is used. For example,
Thus, if the whole period is referred to, for is used, but when the reference is to the starting point of the action, since is used.
The construction It has been being written, while following the usual pattern for the formation of the passive voice, is very rarely used. Occasionally, when it is desired to express the receiving of an action in the past and continuing to the present, the phrasal construction It has been in the process of being written is used. Here the present perfect construction is applied to to be, and the continuity and the passive voice are applied to the main verb in non-finite form in a noun phrase.
The past perfect progressive is also known as the pluperfect progressive , the past perfect continuous, and the pluperfect continuous. It is formed by combining, in this order, the preterite of to have, the past participle of to be, and the present participle of the main verb.
The past perfect progressive relates to the past perfect as the present perfect progressive relates to the present perfect.
The construction It had been being written is very rarely used. To convey the past perfect progressive in the passive voice, the construction It had been in the process of being written can be used.
The future perfect progressive, also called the future perfect continuous, is formed by combining, in this order, will or shall, the auxiliary have, the past participle been, and the present participle of the main verb:
This construction is used for an event that will still be in progress at a certain point in the future: By 8:00 he will have been writing for five hours (and will still be doing so).
The construction It will have been being written is never used. The construction It will have been in the process of being written can be used to indicate the continuous receiving of an action prior to some time in the future.
The conditional present is formed by combining the modal auxiliary would (never *woulds, not even in the third person singular) with the infinitive (without to) of the main verb:
The conditional present is used principally in a main clause accompanied by an implicit or explicit doubt or "if-clause"; it may refer to conditional statements in present or future time:
Some varieties of English regularly use would (often shortened to (I)'d) in if clauses, but this is often considered non-standard: If you'd leave now, you'd be on time. Such use of would is widespread especially in spoken US English in all sectors of society, but these forms are not usually used in writing that is more formal. Nevertheless, some reliable sources simply label this usage as acceptable US English and no longer label it as colloquial.[2][3]
There are exceptions, however, where would is used in British English too in seemingly counterfactual conditions, but these can usually be interpreted as a modal use of would: If you would listen to me once in a while, you might learn something.[4][5] In cases in which the action in the if clause takes place after that in the main clause, use of would in counterfactual conditions is however considered standard and correct usage in even formal UK and US usage: If it would make Bill happy, I'd [I would] give him the money.[4]
The passive voice of the conditional present is formed by the conditional present of to be followed by the past participle of the main verb, as in
The auxiliary verbs could and might can also be used to indicate the conditional mood, as in the following:
The conditional present progressive (or continuous) is used for the continuous aspect of the conditional construction; it describes a situation that would now be prevailing had it not been for some intervening event:
(For the use of would in both clauses, see note and sources at end of section on conditional above.)
The passive voice of the conditional progressive progressive can be formed as It would be being written, but since this construction is awkward the form It would be in the process of being written would be more common.
The conditional perfect construction is used for conditional situations occurring in the past; it expresses thoughts which are or may be contrary to present fact:
Some varieties of English regularly use would have (often shortened to (I)'d have) in if clauses, but this is often non-standard: If you (would)'ve told me, we could've done something about it. Such use of would is widespread especially in spoken US English in all sectors of society, but is incorrect and is not usually used in more formal writing. (See note and sources at end of section on conditional above.)
There are exceptions, however, where would is used in British English too in seemingly counterfactual conditions, but these can usually be interpreted as a modal use of would: If you would have listened to me once in a while, you might have learned something. In cases in which the action in the if clause takes place after that in the main clause, use of would in if clauses is however considered standard and correct usage in even formal UK and US usage: If it would have made Bill happy, I'd [I would] have given him the money. (See note and sources at end of section on conditional above.)
The passive voice of the conditional perfect is formed as the conditional perfect of to be followed by the past participle of the main verb:
(For the use of would in both clauses, see note and sources at end of the section on conditional above.)
Rather than the very rarely used awkward construction It would have been being written, the conditional perfect progressive can be expressed in the passive voice as in It would have been in the process of being written.
This form is always identical to the infinitive. This means that apart from the verb to be, it is distinct from the indicative present only in the third person singular and the obsolete second person singular.
It is used to express wishes about the present or future:
It can be used (in formal writing) to express present doubt, especially after if, whether, and lest and in set phrases:
The subordinate conjunction whether can be replaced by inversion of be and the subject:
It is also used in a mandative sense:
The present subjunctive can be written in the passive voice as in
The imperfect subjunctive is used to express hypotheses about the present or future: it is used to describe unreal or hypothetical conditions. It consists of the verb were in all persons and numbers (including the first and third persons singular), either as the main verb or as a helping verb combined with the infinitive of the main verb.
It usually appears in "if clauses" of conditional sentences. Examples include:
Especially in formal usage, if may be omitted and the order of the subject and were inverted:
When if means when (a fact) then the indicative is used. Compare
The imperfect subjunctive is also used in "that clauses" after a wish:
This last example can be contrasted with I want her to be here, in which the indicative rather than the subjunctive is used because there is a substantial possibility that the hypothesis is (or will be) true.
The imperfect subjunctive can be written in the passive voice as in
or
A future subjunctive for use in "if clauses" can be constructed using the conjugated form of the verb "to be" plus the infinitive (including the particle to) or by using the modal auxiliary verb "should" (though the should form is very unusual in American English):
These constructions can alternatively be expressed with inversion of the order of were or should and the subject, with if omitted:
If the were to constructions is used in the "if clause", the word would is used in the main clause; if the should form is used in the "if clause", either will or would can be used in the main clause, depending on whether the event is very hypothetical (leading to the use of would) or is quite possible (permitting the use of will).
The passive voice can be applied to the future subjunctive as in any of the following:
or
"Will" used as above in future constructions and "would" in conditional constructions are syntactic uses of modal auxiliaries in the construction of clauses. The English modal auxiliaries are would, will, should, shall, may, might, can, could, must, ought, had better, dare, and need, and are used to express probability, insistence or refusal, habitual action, suggestion, conditional action, etc.
For example, will and would can be used with a different meaning to futurity or conditionality:
All of these serve as auxiliary verbs that are uninflected, even in the third person singular. Most of these have multiple modal uses, depending on context. With the exception of ought, all are followed by the short form of the main verb's infinitive (that is, without the particle to). The last two of these, dare and need, are infrequently used as modals and are much more frequently used instead as main verbs that are inflected with -s in the present tense third person singular; when they are used as main verbs, the infinitive following them includes the particle to.
In addition to conveying the content of an action or state, verbs in English can convey tense, aspect, mood and other modality, and voice.
Tense refers to the grammatical expression of the time (past, present, or future) of an action or state. English uses absolute tense, in which time is expressed relative to the speaker's present, rather than relative tense, in which time is expressed relative to the time frame (speaker's present, past, or future) that has already been established.
English has two tenses, in the sense of grammatical constructions which always convey a time frame: past and non-past (present/future). The past is conveyed with the preterite form discussed above (e.g., (Yesterday) I saw him), while the base form of the verb (or its forms inflected for third-person singular or for the progressive) refers to the present ((Right now) I see him), generic time (I (frequently) see him), or the future (I see him tomorrow at five o'clock). The will or shall construction and the am going to construction are not future tenses because their use does not guarantee that futurity is being referred to (as for example in Right now I will tolerate no dissent (determination with present reference), Boys will be boys (habituality in generic time)), and I'm going to do my best (now) (intention in the non-past)).
To express the future, the modal form will + bare infinitive is often used, though this form has other uses as well. The periphrastic form is/am/are going to + infinitive is also frequently used. In dependent clauses or for scheduled future action, the present tense form is used, as in It will be Tuesday when I see you or I arrive tomorrow at 5:00. The near future can be expressed as in I am about to do that.
The past and future perfect forms are used to form relative tenses. For example, At 10:00 I will have done it already refers to the past of the future, and Yesterday at 10:00 I had done that already expresses the past of the past.
The auxiliary would is used to express a future in the past, as in In 1982 I knew that I would graduate in 1984. Furthermore, a past of the future of the past can be formed by combining this would form with the auxiliary have, as in In 1982 I knew that by 1986 I would have graduated already (in which graduation occurs in, say, 1984, which is the past of 1986, which is the future of 1982, which is the past of the speaker).
Aspect refers to the fabric of time alluded to by the verb — whether the time of action or state is viewed as an unanalyzed unit, something that is continuously progressing as the action occurs, something that occurs in discrete sequential units during the action, something that continues from the past to the present, etc.
English verbs primarily distinguish between progressive aspect and non-progressive aspect, using the verb to be and the present participle (the -ing form of the verb) to indicate the progressive and its absence to indicate non-progressivity of the action or state. This usage occurs even when the tense is past, in which case the tense is indicated by the form of to be as in I was running).
English can optionally mark the habitual aspect if the tense is past, in two ways as exemplified by I used to go there and Back then I would go there.
Finally, English frequently marks the perfect aspect in both the past and the non-past, to indicate the experience of something having occurred prior to the time of the experience. For example, I have visited Paris conveys the current state of being a former visitor to Paris, and I had visited Paris before I went to Rome conveys the state of being of former visitor to Paris as a state that was experienced at the time in the past when I visited Rome.
Modality refers to the attitude of the speaker toward the action or state, and mood is the inflectional expression of modality. These attitudes generally involve degrees of desirability and possibility.
The indicative mood is the usual mood, which indicates a declaration without indicating that it is desired, counterfactual, or a command.
The imperative mood is used for commands, as in the second person construction Go there now in which the implied subject you is omitted and in which the bare form of the verb is used. In the first person plural, commands or suggestions can be indicated as in the construction Let's go, in which the 's is a contraction of the first person plural pronoun us. (Occasionally in formal situations the contraction is avoided, as in Let us go.)
English sometimes marks the subjunctive mood of desire in dependent clauses by using the base form of the verb rather than an inflected form, as in I demand that he be here or I insist that he come, or the subjunctive mood of counterfactuality by backshifting the base form to the preterite form and replacing was with were, as in I wish that he were here (now) (present reference to something that is not true) or If he had been here, he would have... (past reference (not past of the past) to something that was not true).
To express a counterfactual action that is contingent on another counterfactual action (the latter being expressed in the subjunctive), the construction as in would go is used, as in If he were here, I would go now. For past contingent actions that are contrary to fact, the would + have + past participle construction is used, as in If he had been here, I would have gone. However, the constructions with would are non-inflectional, so technically they are not a mood but rather a periphrastic expression of modality.
The auxiliaries could and might also can indicate contingent counterfactuality, as in If I were taking the test now, I could pass it (=would be able to pass it) and in If I were offered the opportunity now, I might accept it (=maybe would accept it).
English also expresses modality non-inflectionally, using modal verbs, as in I can do it, You may do it, I might do it, He must do it, etc.
Voice expresses the relation between the verb's subject and the action.
English expresses two voices: active and passive. The active voice is unmarked and conveys that the subject is the one undertaking the action, as in I see her. The passive voice conveys that the action is being received by the subject, and uses a helping verb with the passive participle, which in English is always identical to the past participle; examples of the passive voice are I am seen (by her) and I always get beaten when I play racketball. The be passive can be used in any circumstance, while the get passive usually conveys at least slightly adverse consequences for the recipient of the action.
| For a list of words relating to English verbs, see the English verbs category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |