English grammar - Roger Berry 2012

A6.3 Verb phrase combinations
A6 Auxiliaries and the verb phrase
Section A. Introduction

In A5 the question ’How many tenses are there in English?’ was posed, with the perhaps surprising answer ’2’. If we rephrase the question as ’How many verb phrase combinations are there in English?’ we get the following calculation:

2 (for the (simple) tenses) x 2 (for the progressive) x 2 (for the perfect) = 8 (excluding modals and passives)

For example, for the verb see (using he as subject) we have the following possibilities: he sees (present simple) he is seeing (present progressive)

he has seen (present perfect) he has been seeing (present perfect progressive)

he saw (past simple) he was seeing (past progressive)

he had seen (past perfect) he had been seeing (past perfect progressive)

The first form in the above verb phrases is the finite one: the one that shows the tense and person, regardless of whether it is a verb or auxiliary (see A5).

If we include passives, then the number of verb phrase combinations doubles to sixteen.

Activity A6.2

Supply the following verb phrase forms for the verb ’take’. Use ’he’ as subject.

1. present (simple) passive:

2. present progressive passive:

3. present perfect passive:

4. present perfect progressive passive:

5. past (simple) passive:

6. past progressive passive:

7. past perfect passive:

8. past perfect progressive passive:

Activity A6.3

Name the verb phrase forms in the sentences below. Use the following formula (brackets show the optional elements):

PRESENT or PAST, (PERFECT), (PROGRESSIVE), (PASSIVE)

1. They have been laughing.

2. We are being laughed at.

3. They had been being laughed at.

4. I have never laughed so much.

5. You were laughing all the time.

6. We are been laughing.