IV – 2 – PAST TENSE
9 Forms of the Past Tense
Multiple
variations of past tense that employ regular verbs occur in English.
Explanations of the distinctions follow. Note that each section includes
examples of positive-declarative, negative-declarative, and interrogative
forms.
1. Simple Past
A
sentence in the simple-past form describes an event that occurred in the past:
“They
agreed with us.”
“They
did not agree with us.”
“Did
they agree with us?”
Notice
that in the first sentence, the verb form of drive is in past tense, but in the
other examples, did
does the heavy lifting of indicating the tense, so drive remains in present
tense. In almost all other variations of past tense, the form of the verb “to
be” and the participle retain the same form regardless of the type of sentence.
2. Past Progressive (or Past Continuous)
Past-progressive
statements and questions describe something that began in the past and
continued to occur for a time before stopping:
“They
were agreeing with us.”
“They
were not agreeing with us.”
“Were
they agreeing with us?”
3. Past Perfect
This
tense form applies to events that began at a time preceding a period in the
past:
“They
had agreed with us.”
“They
had not agreed with us.”
“Had
they agreed with us?”
4. Past Perfect Progressive (or Past Perfect Continuous)
Sentences
with this tense form describe something that occurred in the past and continued
to occur after the fact but in the present is no longer occurring:
“They
had been agreeing with us.”
“They
had not been agreeing with us.”
“Had
they been agreeing with us?”
5. Past Habitual
A
sentence written in past-habitual tense describes an occurrence that once
occurred continuously or repeatedly:
“They
used to agree with us.”
“They
used to not agree with us.”
(This
formal usage is awkward and seldom used; we are more likely to write, “They
used to disagree with us.” An informal version of the sentence, more likely to
be used if no direct antonym like disagree is available for a given sentence,
is “They didn’t use to agree with us.”)
“Used
they to agree with us?”
(This
formal usage is rare. The informal form, much more common, is, “Did they use to
agree with us?”)
6. Time-Specific Past Habitual
A
variation of the past-habitual tense includes a specific time frame:
“Before,
they would agree with us.”
“Before,
they would not agree with us.”
“Before,
would they agree with us?”
7. Past Intensive
A
sentence in the past-intensive form describes something confirmed as having
occurred:
“They
did agree with us.”
“They
did not agree with us.”
“Did
they agree with us?”
8. Future in the Past
A
future-in-the-past construction describes something that was supposed to have
occurred after a time in the past:
“They
were going to agree with us.”
“They
were not going to agree with us.”
“Were
they going to agree with us?”
Past Subjunctive
This form is not numbered, because it is not, despite its name, a type of past tense, but it is identified here to make that point. A sentence formed in the past subjunctive describes a counterfactual event:
This form is not numbered, because it is not, despite its name, a type of past tense, but it is identified here to make that point. A sentence formed in the past subjunctive describes a counterfactual event:
“If
they were going to agree with us, they would have told us by now.”
“If
they were not going to agree with us, they would have told us by now.”
“If
they were they going to agree with us, would they have told us by now?”
9. Past-Perfect Subjunctive
Sentences
with this subjunctive form, by contrast, do have a past-tense sense:
“Had
they agreed with us, they would have told us by now.”
“Had
they not agreed with us, they would have told us by now.”
“Had they agreed with us, would they have told us by now?”
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