Free English Grammar - Mary Ansell 2000

The uses of formation of the english verb tenses

The Uses of the English Tenses

Type of Tense Type of Action Expressed

Simple  - actions occurring at regular intervals

    - general truths, or situations existing for a period of time

    - non-continuous actions

Continuous - continuous, ongoing actions

Perfect  - non-continuous actions completed before a certain time

Perfect Continuous - continuous, ongoing actions completed before a certain time

The Formation of the Indicative Mood of the Active Voice

The Formation of the Subjunctive Mood of the Active Voice

The Formation of the Indicative Mood of the Passive Voice

The Formation of the Subjunctive Mood of the Passive Voice

⁎ In the Simple Present and Simple Past tenses of the Active Voice, the auxiliaries are used only for emphasis, and for the formation of questions and negative statements. Auxiliaries are never used with the Simple Present or Simple Past of the verb to be.

⁎⁎ When used without the auxiliary, the third person singular of the Simple Present, in the Indicative Mood of the Active Voice, has the ending s.

⁎⁎⁎ When used without the auxiliary, the Simple Past form of the verb is used. For regular verbs, and for many irregular verbs, the Simple Past has the same form as the past participle.

**** The other modal auxiliaries could, may, might, must, should and would form conjugations in the same way as will and shall.