UGRC 110 Academic Writing - · PDF file · 2017-09-20UGRC 110 Academic Writing Session 3 – Tense and Aspect ... English Grammar that will enable you write correct sentences

College of Education

School of Continuing and Distance Education 2014/2015 – 2016/2017

UGRC 110

Academic Writing

Session 3 – Tense and Aspect

Lecturer: Dr. David Odoi, LANGUAGE CENTRE Contact Information: [email protected]

Session Overview

In this session, we will continue to look at some basic issues in English Grammar that will enable you write correct sentences. We will focus our attention on the verb and discuss comprehensively.

OBJECTIVES

• By the end of this section, you should be able to – identify what a verb is

– identify the various forms of verbs

– identify the various verb tenses in English

– use verbs in the correct tense

– note the difference between the active and the passive voice

Dr. David Odoi, Language Centre Slide 2

Session Outline

The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:

• Verbs

• Verb Forms

• Verb Tense

• Voice


Reading List

Read

a) University Grammar Of English By Quirk & Greenbaum(1973)

b) Oxford Practice of Grammar by Yule (2006)

c) A Communicative Grammar Of English By Leech & Svartvik(2003)


VERBS Topic One


Verbs

• As has been mentioned in the introduction, verbs are the foundation words of sentences. The verb gives the sentence meaning by saying something about the nouns or pronouns that are the subjects or the objects.

• Also note that a verb is a word that shows physical or mental action, or a state of being of a noun or pronoun. Let us take a look at the following examples. – We run five miles each day. (action)

– John chose the winner. (action)

– The new student became our friend. (state of being)

– Mr. Ativo is a teacher. (state of being)


Verbs

• There is another group of verbs referred to as helping verbs. Helping verbs or auxiliary verbs, as their name suggest, help the main verb express action or state of being. All modals are helping verbs. Examples of modal verbs are: will, could, should, and must. In addition to modal verbs, the verb be, do, and have are also helping verbs although they can also be the main action, or state of being verb in a sentence. Some examples are:

1. The plane will arrive on time. 2. The bicycle’s chain has become rusty. 3. He doesn’t go to school. 4. She is going to the market. • In the sentences above, the helping verbs are underlined and the

main verbs in the sentence are written in bold face. The helping verb ‘will’ helped to form what we call the future tense, something that we are expecting to happen in the future.


Verbs (continued)

• The verb ‘has’, helped in forming what we call the perfect tense and ‘do’ helped in forming a negative sentence in the present simple tense. We are able to form the progressive form of the main verb ‘go’ with the help of the auxiliary verb ‘be’. If you try taking out the helping verbs from the sentences, the sentences will still communicate something but with the wrong verb form. However, if we take the main verb (those written in bold face) out of the sentences, we cannot make any sense out of the sentences.

• The three helping verbs, except the modals can also behave as main verbs in a sentence. This is exemplified in the sentences below.

I am a soldier. (state of being) I have a car. (state of being) I do all my assignments. (action) • The only verbs we have in the sentences above are the verbs be,

have, and do and they are the main verbs of the sentences.


VERB FORMS Topic Two


Verb Forms

• All verbs, (except the verb to be), has four forms. These are the present or base form, the present participle form, the past form, and the past participle form. The base form is the verbs form used with the infinitive (to) as in to walk, to talk, to sleep. The base form is what is used in the present simple form except that, for the third person singular (he, she, it), -s or –es is added to the base form. The present participle form is the base form together with –ing.

• Some verbs have the same form for the past and the past participle, while others have different forms for the present, past, and past participle forms. Some verbs are considered regular and others considered irregular. Regular verbs form their past and past participle by adding -d or –ed to the end of the verb. Irregular verbs follow no pattern in forming their past and past participles.


Verb Forms

Present Present participle Past Past Participle

jump (am, is, are, was, were, been) jumping

jumped (has / have) jumped

dance (am, is, are, was, were, been) dancing

danced (has / have) danced

write (am, is, are, was, were, been) writing

wrote (has / have) written

come (am, is, are, was, were, been) coming

came (has / have) come


Here are examples of the four principal forms of the verb.

VERB TENSE Topic Three


Verb Tense

• There is Time for everything. As individuals, we have specific times that we do certain things or specific times that certain things happen in our lives. When you talk about events in our lives, we sometimes need to express them with specific times. The tenses of a verb help us to express time. In other words, tense is the time expressed by a verb. We form the tense of the verb with one of its main forms; present, past, and past participle.

• In English, we also have what is known as aspect. The aspect is what informs us about whether the action is completed or is still in progress. Together, the tense and the aspect of the verb give us three groups of tenses namely: simple, perfect, and progressive. However, there are more tenses formed on the major ones mentioned.


Verb Tense

• Simple tenses indicate whether an action occurs in the present, past or future. For example:

He loves African movies. present simple) He bought a lot of African movies yesterday. (past simple) He will watch Africa Movies every Sunday afternoon. (future simple) • Perfect tenses indicate that the action was or will be finished before a

specific time or another action. This is exemplified in the following sentences. They are formed with the helping verb have and the past participle form of the verb.

Akua has passed the driving test. (Present perfect) The band had already performed when they arrived. (Past perfect) I will have finished preparing the food by the time you arrive. (Future perfect)


Verb Tense

• Progressive tenses indicate that the action continues, did continue, or will continue, as shown in the following sentences. The progressive tense is formed with the helping verb be and by adding –ing to the base of the main verb.

• She is cooking in the kitchen. (Present progressive)

• When the ambulance arrived, he was sweating profusely. (Past progressive)

• Tomorrow by this time, I will be driving to Accra. (Future progressive)


Simple Present Something that occurs regularly or is always true He performs his duties diligently.

Present progressive Something that is happening or going on now The team is playing well at the moment.

Present perfect Something that began in the past and is continuing now, or was completed in the past, but we can see the results now.

Their parents have monitored their progress closely.

Present perfect progressive

Something that began in the past and is continuing now.

She has been acting in movies for twenty years now.

Here are three tables that summarize all the basic tenses that there are in English and what they communicate.

Present tense

Verb Tense

Past simple Something that began and ended in the past The manager arrived late to the meeting.

Past progressive Something that began and continued in the past. They were singing and dancing at the party.

Past perfect Something that occurred before a certain time in the past or was completed before another action in the past.

The birds had eaten all the banana before we knew they were ripe.

Past perfect progressive Something that was going on until a second action occurred in the past.

I had been playing tennis all morning before I broke my leg.


Past tense

Future tense

Future simple Something that will take place in the future. The concert will begin on time.

Future progressive Something that will begin in the future and will continue for sometime.

I will be driving to Accra tomorrow afternoon.

Future perfect Something that will be completed by a certain time in the future or before another action will begin in the future.

The team will have finished working on the project by next week.

Future perfect progressive Something that will continue until a certain time in the future.

By the time Dr. Yentumi retires, he would have been teaching here for thirty years.

Activity

• In each of the following sentences, underline the correct verb tense in parenthesis.

• Recently, filmmakers (have used, used) technology to improve filmmaking considerably.

• As early as the 1980s, filmmakers (will be using, were using) computer generated or CG graphics.

• They (added, will have added) effects on a background.

• They already (create, have created) everything from aliens to giant gorillas.

• Soon they (had shown, will show) realistic animated human figures.


VOICE Topic Four


Voice

• Another important information that you have to understand about verbs in English is the concept of voice. There is the active voice and the passive voice. A verb is in the active voice when the subject of the sentence or clause performs the action described by the verb. For example:

John has arrived.

Owusu plays professional football.

• In the above sentences, the verbs ‘arrive’ and ‘play’ are performed by the nouns ‘John’ and ‘Owusu’, which are subjects of the sentences.


Voice

• In the above examples, the nouns ‘the child’ and ‘the food’ are the recipients of the actions that the verbs bite and prepare describe. In the first sentence, ‘mosquitoes performed the action. However, the second sentence does not state the person or thing that performed the action. Since the passive voice may make it difficult for readers to understand who is performing the action of a sentence, you use the active voice in most writing situations. However, if you do not know who performed an action or if you want to emphasize the receiver of the action, then consider using the passive voice.


Activity

Mention the recipients of the actions described by the underlined verbs in the following sentences. Write it in the space provided.

1. ‘Things Fall Apart” was written by Chinua Achebe.

2. My purse was stolen

3. The coffee was being made by mother when I walked into the kitchen.

4. The applicants will be judged on the basis of their originality.

5. Alexander Bell Graham invented the telephone.

6. The mail had already been delivered by the mail carrier.

7. I have just been interviewed by the director.


Documents

UGRC 110 Academic Writing - · PDF file · 2017-09-20UGRC 110 Academic Writing Session 3 – Tense and Aspect ... English Grammar that will enable you write correct sentences