SoSe 2009© 2009, Lee Traynor, MA (Oxon) EfS Grammar II: Two Past Tenses – Simple and Continuous Telling stories about the past; relationships between past

SoSe 2009 © 2009, Lee Traynor, MA (Oxon)

EfS Grammar II:Two Past Tenses – Simple and

Continuous

Telling stories about the past; relationships between past events.


EfS Grammar II: Two Past Tenses

to beI wasyou werehe/she/it waswe werethey were

Regular verbs e.g. to publishI publishedyou publishedhe/she/it publishedwe publishedthey published

Irregular verbs e.g. to goI wentyou wenthe/she/it wentwe wentthey went

To have got: behaves like an ordinary irregular verb had.

Simple - Affirmative



to beI was notyou were nothe/she/it was notwe were notthey were not

Regular and irregular verbs e.g. to goI did not goyou did not gohe/she/it did not gowe did not gothey did not go

To have got: behaves like an ordinary verb did not have.

Simple - Negative



to bewas I?were you?was he/she/it?were we?were they?

Regular and irregular verbs e.g. to classifydid I classify?did you classify?did he/she/it classify?did we classify?did they classify?

To have got: behaves like an ordinary verb did ... have?

Simple – Interrogative



Normally: Just add –ed.

Doubling: Short words ending in consonant-vowel-consonant double the final consonant.

Final –e: Words ending in –e just add –d.

Final –y: Consonant –y changes to –ied.Vowel –y goes to –yed.

Pronunciation: Words ending in –d and –t receive an additional syllable (ıd).

Simple – Spelling and Pronunciation



Affirmative (Negative)I was (not) doingyou were (not) doinghe/she/it was (not) doingwe was (not) doingthey was (not) doing

Interrogativewas I doing?were you doing?was he/she/it doing?were we doing?were they doing?

Form: past tense of "to be" + present participle (-ing form).

Continuous – All Forms



Present participle - Spelling

The final consonant may be doubled:Mainly in one-syllable verbs ending with consonant-vowel-consonant, e.g.stop – stopping.

Words ending in –ie:-ie changes to –y, e.g. lie – lying.

Words ending in –e:final –e is dropped, e.g. make – making.

Present participles are formed by adding -ing



Past simple is used:

Simple – Use

to carry the sequence of verbs of action in a manner resembling points in time past; use may also imply cause and effect;

with verbs of state.



I did the same with the case closed by a plate of aluminum

in which I put a photographic plate and then on the outside a crust of the uranium salt.

The whole was enclosed in an opaque box, and then in a drawer.

After five hours, I developed the plates,

and the silhouettes of the crystalline crusts appeared in black [...].

Becquerel (1896)Becquerel (1896)

Simple - Example



Past continuous is used:

to express incompleteness with verbs of action (hence “progressive” meaning actions in progress or “imperfect” meaning actions not completed at a point of time in the past).

Continuous - Use

Point of time

Incomplete action



Pastcontinuous (background event)

Past simple(interrupting an action)

Past simple(sequence of events)

Relationship Between Simple and Continuous

In 1903 Nature sent Johns Hopkins University physicist Robert W. Wood,

who was attending a scientific conference in Britain […]

Hines (1996)Hines (1996)



I went to the window and it rained.

Get that person on the plane to Sydney!

I opened the door. A man was standing there. He was saying he was the postman.

The whole time: “I am the postman. I am the postman. I am the postman…”

We saw that it was a little boy who drowned.

Bad luck, end of story.

What is wrong with … ?



Becquerel, A.H. (1896): On the rays emitted by phosphorescence. Comptes Rendus 122, 420, translated by Carmen Giunta and available at his site: http://webserver.lemoyne.edu/ faculty/giunta/becquerel.html, accessed October 26, 2007.Alternative citation style: lemoyne.edu

Hines, T. (1996): What Ever Happened to n-Rays? Skeptic 4.4, 85.

References

Documents

SoSe 2009© 2009, Lee Traynor, MA (Oxon) EfS Grammar II: Two Past Tenses – Simple and Continuous Telling stories about the past; relationships between past