609. B. Ph TEXT III – 4 – GIVING INSTRUCTIONS

III – 4   – GIVING  INSTRUCTIONS

Overview

• The minimum amount to apply for is $250; grants awarded are generally less than $2,500.
• Organizations must submit an online application to be considered for funding.
• The deadline to apply for 2013 funding is December 1, 2013. 

Eligibility Checklist

1. Funds must benefit the facility’s service area: potential grantees should be nonprofit organizations with programs that benefit communities within the service area of the Walmart store, Sam’s Club or Logistics facility from which they are requesting funds.
2. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have identified four core areas of giving. To ensure that your application has the best chance of being funded, the proposed use of the grant should fit within these areas of giving: Hunger Relief & Healthy Eating, Sustainability, Women's Economic Empowerment or Career Opportunity. Specifically, our stores, clubs and logistics facilities should focus on local organizations with programs working in Hunger Relief & Healthy Eating, as well as other programs that align with the Foundation’s areas of giving. However, programs that do not align with these areas may be given consideration. If you are applying for funding through a Sam’s Club location, additional focus areas are considered. Learn more about the Sam’s Club Giving Program.
3. Organizations must be described as one of the following:

• An organization holding a current tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3), (4), (6) or (19) of the Internal Revenue Code;
• A recognized government entity: state, county, or city agency, including law enforcement or fire departments, that are requesting funds exclusively for public purposes;
• A K-12 public or private school, charter school, community/junior college, state/private college or university; or
• A church or other faith-based organization with a proposed project that benefits the community at large.

Selection Process

• Facility management will review and make initial funding decisions on all submitted requests.
• Applications are typically reviewed within 90 days of the submission date, and organizations are notified of decisions via e-mail. All funding decisions are final.
• If an organization is approved, grant checks will be sent directly to the recipient organization.

·         In the event of being awarded a grant, organizations should contact their local facility from which funds were awarded to schedule a formal recognition event.

Funding Exclusions

• Advertising, film or video projects
• Association/chamber memberships
• Athletic sponsorships (teams/events)
• Capital campaigns and endowments (defined as any plans to raise funds for a significant purchase or expense, such as new construction, major renovations or to help fund normal budgetary items)
• Contests or pageants
• Individuals (requests made solely for the benefit of one person or family)
• Nationally-sponsored organizations: American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, Children's Miracle Network and United Way
• Organizations or programs that do not benefit the communities within the facility’s service area
• Organizations that deny service to a potential client or beneficiary on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, veteran or disability status
• Organizations whose services do not benefit the community at large
• Political causes, candidates, organizations or campaigns
• Projects that send products or people for relief efforts to a foreign country
• Registration fees
• Research
• Salaries, stipends, tips and rewards
• Construction costs
• Scholarships (tuition, room and board or any other expense related to college, university, or vocational school attendance)
• Sponsorship of fundraising events (walks, races, tournaments, etc.)
• Third-party giving
• Tickets for contests, raffles or any other activities with prizes
• Organizations who apply to a large number of facilities outside of the primary area

Grant Guidelines

The U.S. Bank Foundation giving program is designed to respect the diversity of our communities. We're actively involved in our communities, partnering with local nonprofits to meet specific needs.

Within our funding guidelines, we consider grant requests without regard to race, gender, disability, religion, ethnicity, age or sexual orientation. While The U.S. Bank Foundation generously funds many nonprofit organizations in our communities, it's impossible to fund every request received.

Mission

U.S. Bancorp contributes to the strength and vitality of our communities through the Foundation charitable contributions program. We seek to build strong partnerships and lasting value in our communities by supporting organizations that:

• improve the educational and economic opportunities of low- and moderate-income individuals and families.
• enhance the cultural and artistic life of the communities in which we live and work.

General Guidelines

Through the U.S. Bank Foundation, we support organizations and programs that advance the funding priorities described under the "Funding Priorities" section below and that are located in a community with a U.S. Bank office.

Organizations must have tax-exempt status under IRS section 501(c)(3).

Types of Support

Within these general guidelines, we consider the following requests:

Unrestricted General Operating Support
We consider unrestricted general operating support requests from organizations that:

• deliver effective programs with measurable outcomes in response to community needs.
• are financially stable.
• receive and provide strong leadership.
• collaborate to maximize effectiveness.
• involve constituents in planning.

Program Support
We consider requests to support programs that are highly effective or innovative and do not duplicate other programs or services.

Capital Support
We consider a small number of requests for capital support from organizations that meet all other funding criteria and with which we have a pre-existing relationship. We do not make lead gifts, and grants generally do not exceed one percent of the campaign contribution goal.

Contributions of Equipment and Property
U.S. Bancorp provides occasional in-kind contributions of miscellaneous office equipment and property when available. For information about available items, contact the charitable contributions contact in your local area.

Funding Priorities

Economic Opportunity
Through the U.S. Bank Foundation, we support the creation of economic opportunity through grants to organizations that provide affordable housing, encourage self-sufficiency, and assist economic development.

Affordable Housing
We support:

• organizations that support the preservation, rehabilitation and construction of quality affordable housing that assists low- and moderate-income populations.
• programs that provide home buyer counseling and related financial education to low- and moderate-income individuals and families.

Self-Sufficiency
We support:

• programs that assist low- and moderate-income individuals in development of work and life skills essential to self-sufficiency, with a focus on work-entry programs, specific skills training, employment retention and personal financial management training.
• broad child-care and transportation initiatives designed to help people transition from welfare to work (no funding is provided for direct service providers or individual child-care providers).

Economic Development
In low- and moderate-income areas, we fund programs that support small business development and expansion, commercial revitalization and job creation.

Education
We support:

• innovative programs that help low-income and at-risk students succeed in school and prepare for post-secondary education.
• financial literacy training.
• effective mentoring programs.

Priority is given to programs that reach a broad number of students, bring together community resources, support curriculum innovation and can, if successful, be replicated.

Cultural and Artistic Enrichment
We fund organizations and programs that:

• build audiences for the arts, especially among underserved populations.
• bring select and limited civic amenities to underserved, rural communities.
• promote the arts in education.

United Way
U.S. Bancorp supports the United Way as an effective means of meeting human service needs. Organizations receiving primary funding support from a United Way organization are not eligible for a direct grant from the U.S. Bank Foundation.

 

Employee Community Involvement

We're committed to working in partnership with our employees to strengthen the community. We consider employee involvement in evaluating contribution requests, and we support volunteer involvement programs for employees in our communities

U.S. Bank Foundation Matching Gifts Program
The U.S. Bank Foundation matches qualifying contributions of cash and stock made by U.S. Bancorp employees to nonprofit organizations or higher education institutions on a dollar-for-dollar basis from a minimum of $50 up to an annual maximum of $1,000, per employee.

Funding Restrictions
The U.S. Bank Foundation charitable contributions program will not provide funding for:

• organizations that are not tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3).
• fraternal organizations, merchant associations, chamber memberships or programs, or 501(c)(4) or (6) organizations.
• section 509(a)(3) supporting organizations.
• fundraising events or sponsorships.
• "pass through" organizations or private foundations.
• organizations outside U.S. Bancorp communities.
• programs operated by religious organizations for religious purposes.
• political organizations or organizations designed primarily to lobby.
• individuals.
• travel and related expenses.
• endowment campaigns.
• deficit reduction.
• organizations receiving primary funding from United Way
• organizations whose practices are not in keeping with the company's equal opportunity policy.

If your organization is eligible for a grant from U.S. Bank Foundation, we encourage you to apply today.

The Hasbro Children’s Fund is responsible for the majority of our company’s grant making.

Grants made by the Hasbro Children’s Fund focus on three core principles:

• programs which provide hope to children who need it most
• play for children who otherwise would not be able to experience that joy
• the empowerment of youth through service

Philanthropic Partners

With the help of strategic philanthropic partners, we work to make the biggest impact for children in need. Hasbro has entered into these strategic partnerships to support children on both a global and national scale. Visit our Strategic Partners page to learn more about the work we do with these wonderful organizations.

Local Grants

In the locations where Hasbro has operating facilities (RI; Springfield, MA; Renton, WA; Los Angeles, CA) we annually provide local community grants which support programs that deliver; stability for children in crisis; pediatric physical and mental health services; hunger security; educational programs; quality out of school time programming and programs that empower youth through service.

A list of the organizations that received a local grant from the Hasbro Children's Fund in 2012 can be found here.

Our local grant making is determined through an RFP process and at this time, we are not currently accepting proposals.

Corporate Giving Guidelines

Our Commitment

AEP's Community Relations goal is: "To support and play an active, positive role in communities where we live and work." Providing financial support to non-profit organizations within its service territories is just one way AEP works toward this goal.

• Employee volunteers— Employees throughout the AEP System coordinate numerous company projects to benefit a number of non-profit organizations. Hundreds of employees also share their talents individually as volunteers in our communities.
• Economic development — AEP sponsors special programs to encourage economic development within its traditional service territory.
• Matching gifts — Employee contributions to accredited colleges and universities for scholastic programs may be matched by the company through a separate employee educational matching contributions program.
• In-kind donations — AEP makes contributions of non-cash items such as real estate, furniture, equipment and the services of employees on short-term loan to organizations, using similar criteria as cash donations.

 

Eligibility For Charitable Contributions

To be eligible for corporate contributions, organizations must be tax exempt under section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code and benefit communities within AEP's service territory in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma or communities with major AEP facilities.

Organizations receiving contributions must be in compliance with the Equal Employment Opportunities Act and other federal, state and local laws and regulations.

 

Corporate Giving Guidelines

Contributions are made principally in the areas of education, the environment and human services, such as hunger, housing, health, and safety.

• Priority is based on the perceived overall benefit to communities in the company's service area.
• In the area of education, preference is given to grades pre-K through 12 in the fields of science, technology and math.
• Multi-year commitments to capital campaigns generally do not exceed five years.
• AEP and its employees provide strong support to many annual United Way campaigns within our service territory; therefore, additional support to United Way agencies is limited.

Organizations and Activities Not Eligible

• Religious, fraternal, service and veteran organizations except for non-sectarian social service activities available to the broader community, such as a senior center or a church-owned housing project.
• Those with a purpose that is solely athletic in nature, not connected to a school or youth group with other developmental goals.
• Individuals.

Proposals

Requests for contributions can be submitted in writing or electronically. Each request should include:

• Evidence of tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
• Amount of funds requested.
• Description of intended use of requested funds, who will benefit and how they will benefit.
• Overall budget of related program.
• Description of how the organization will measure results and report outcome of the use of funds being requested.

Submitting Requests

Written requests for local or statewide projects may be submitted to the appropriate AEP operating unit office:

AEP Ohio	attn: Beth Kaltenbach One Riverside Plaza Columbus, OH 43215
AEP Texas	539 N. Carancahua 17th Floor Corpus Christi, TX 78478
Appalachian Power	P. O. Box 1986 Charleston, WV 25327-1986
Indiana Michigan Power	110 East Wayne St. Fort Wayne, IN 46802
Kentucky Power	101A Enterprise Drive PO Box 5190 Frankfort, KY 40602
PSO	212 East 6th St. Tulsa, OK 74119
SWEPCO	428 Travis St. Shreveport, LA 71101

Requests for multi-state or national projects should be limited to a 250-word synopsis and submitted via email (no attachments, please) to Educate@AEP.com. Based on the synopsis, we may ask you to submit a full, on-line proposal for consideration.

 

Employee Volunteers

AEP's Community Relations goal is: "To support and play an active, positive role in communities where we live and work."

608. B. Ph TEXT III – 3 – PAST TENSE

III – 3   – 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:

“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?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Past Tense Irregular Verbs List

English Grammar Notes

Part One

The following is a list of Irregular Verbs in English:

Verb	Past Simple	Past Participle
arise	arose	arisen
babysit	babysat	babysat
be	was / were	been
beat	beat	beaten
become	became	become
bend	bent	bent
begin	began	begun
bet	bet	bet
bind	bound	bound
bite	bit	bitten
bleed	bled	bled
blow	blew	blown
break	broke	broken
breed	bred	bred
bring	brought	brought
broadcast	broadcast	broadcast
build	built	built
buy	bought	bought
catch	caught	caught
choose	chose	chosen
come	came	come
cost	cost	cost
cut	cut	cut
deal	dealt	dealt
dig	dug	dug
do	did	done
draw	drew	drawn
drink	drank	drunk
drive	drove	driven
eat	ate	eaten
fall	fell	fallen
feed	fed	fed
feel	felt	felt
fight	fought	fought
find	found	found
fly	flew	flown
forbid	forbade	forbidden
forget	forgot	forgotten
forgive	forgave	forgiven
freeze	froze	frozen
get	got	gotten
give	gave	given
go	went	gone
grow	grew	grown
hang*	hung	hung
have	had	had
hear	heard	heard
hide	hid	hidden
hit	hit	hit
hold	held	held
hurt	hurt	hurt
keep	kept	kept
know	knew	known
lay	laid	laid
lead	led	led
leave	left	left
lend	lent	lent
let	let	let
lie **	lay	lain
light	lit	lit
lose	lost	lost
make	made	made
mean	meant	meant
meet	met	met
pay	paid	paid
put	put	put
quit	quit	quit
read ***	read	read
ride	rode	ridden
ring	rang	rung
rise	rose	risen
run	ran	run
say	said	said
see	saw	seen
sell	sold	sold
send	sent	sent
set	set	set
shake	shook	shaken
shine	shone	shone
shoot	shot	shot
show	showed	shown
shut	shut	shut
sing	sang	sung
sink	sank	sunk
sit	sat	sat
sleep	slept	slept
slide	slid	slid
speak	spoke	spoken
spend	spent	spent
spin	spun	spun
spread	spread	spread
stand	stood	stood
steal	stole	stolen
stick	stuck	stuck
sting	stung	stung
strike	struck	struck
swear	swore	sworn
sweep	swept	swept
swim	swam	swum
swing	swung	swung
take	took	taken
teach	taught	taught
tear	tore	torn
tell	told	told
think	thought	thought
throw	threw	thrown
understand	understood	understood
wake	woke	woken
wear	wore	worn
win	won	won
withdraw	withdrew	withdrawn
write	wrote	written

* HANG - Hang has two different meanings. The first is "to attach (or hang) something in a high position" (e.g. on the wall or on a hook). In this case we use the above verbs Hang-Hung-Hung.

BUT when Hang means "to kill someone by putting a rope around someone's neck and leaving them in a high position without any support", we use different verbs: Hang-Hanged-hanged. This verb is typical of public executions in the past. (e.g. They hanged him in the main square.)

** LIE - Lie has two meanings. When it means "to put your body in a horizontal position" (normally on a bed) it uses the Lie-Lay-Lain verbs.

BUT it is regular Lie-Lied-Lied when it has the other meaning of "not to say the truth".

*** READ - Even though they are written the same, the pronunciation is different in the Past Tense and Past Participle form.

Part Two

The following verbs can be regular or irregular:

Verb	Past Simple	Past Participle
burn	burned OR burnt	burned OR burnt
dream	dreamed OR dreamt	dreamed OR dreamt
learn	learned OR learnt	learned OR learnt
smell	smelled OR smelt	smelled OR smelt

The second form (burnt, dreamt etc.) is more common in British English.

Part Three

Verbs that have the same form in Present, Past and Past Participle form:

Verb	Past Simple	Past Participle
bet	bet	bet
broadcast	broadcast	broadcast
cut	cut	cut
hit	hit	hit
hurt	hurt	hurt
let	let	let
put	put	put
quit	quit	quit
read	read	read
set	set	set
shut	shut	shut
spread	spread	spread

Past tense

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For other uses, see Past tense (disambiguation).

The past tense is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to place an action or situation in past time. In languages which have a past tense, it thus provides a grammatical means of indicating that the event being referred to took place in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs sang, went and was.

In some languages, the grammatical expression of past tense is combined with the expression of other categories such as mood and aspect (see tense–aspect–mood). Thus a language may have several types of past tense form, their use depending on what aspectual or other additional information is to be encoded. French, for example, has a compound past (passé composé) for expressing completed events, an imperfect for expressing events which were ongoing or repeated in the past, as well as several other past forms.

Some languages that grammaticalise for past tense do so by inflecting the verb, while others do so periphrastically using auxiliary verbs, also known as "verbal operators" (and some do both, as in the example of French given above). Not all languages grammaticalise verbs for past tense – Mandarin Chinese, for example, mainly uses lexical means (words like "yesterday" or "last week") to indicate that something took place in the past, although use can also be made of the tense/aspect markers le and guo.

The "past time" to which the past tense refers generally means the past relative to the moment of speaking, although in contexts where relative tense is employed (as in some instances of indirect speech) it may mean the past relative to some other time being under discussion.^[1] A language's past tense may also have other uses besides referring to past time; for example, in English and certain other languages, the past tense is sometimes used in referring to hypothetical situations, such as in condition clauses like If you loved me ..., where the past tense loved is used even though there may be no connection with past time.

Past tense can be indicated with the glossing abbreviation PST.

European languages[edit]

The European continent is heavily dominated by Indo-European languages, all of which have a past tense. In some cases the tense is formed inflectionally as in English see/saw or walk/walked and as in the French imperfect form, and sometimes it is formed periphrastically, as in the French passé composé form. Further, all of the non-Indo-European languages in Europe, such as Basque, Hungarian, and Finnish, also have a past tense.

Germanic languages[edit]

English[edit]

In English, the past tense (or preterite) is one of the inflected forms of a verb. The past tense of regular verbs is made by adding -d or -ed to the base form of the verb, while those of irregular verbs are formed in various different ways (such as see→saw, go→went, be→was/were). With regular and some irregular verbs, the past tense form also serves as a past participle. For full details of past tense formation, see English verbs.

Past events are often referred to using the present perfect construction, as in I have finished (also known as present in past). However this is not regarded as an instance of the past tense; instead it is viewed as a combination of present tense with perfect aspect, specifying a present state that results from past action.^[2] (It can be made into a past tense form by replacing the auxiliary have with had; see below.)

Various multi-word constructions exist for combining past tense with progressive (continuous) aspect, which denotes ongoing action; with perfect aspect; and with progressive and perfect aspects together. These and other common past tense constructions are listed below.

• The simple past consists of just the past tense (preterite) form of the verb (he walked, they flew, etc.), although when it is negated, emphasized or inverted it is sometimes necessary to unfuse the verb, using a periphrastic construction with did (as in did he walk? etc.) – see do-support. The simple past is used for describing single occurrences or habitual occurrences in the past, and sometimes for states existing in the past.

• The past progressive (past continuous) is formed using the simple past of be (was or were) with the main verb's present participle: He was going. This form indicates that an action was ongoing at the past time under consideration.

• The past perfect combines had (the simple past of have) with the past participle of the main verb: We had shouted. This denotes that an action occurred before a specified time in the past, and therefore has similar function to the pluperfect found in some languages.

• The past perfect progressive combines had (the simple past of have) with been (the past participle of be) and the present participle of the main verb: You had been waiting.

• The expression used to (with the infinitive of the main verb) denotes a past habitual situation (I used to play football when I was young), although with a stative verb it can just indicate that a state was continuously in effect (I used to belong to that club). It is often used to emphasize that something is no longer the case. Another way of referring to past habitual action is to use would, as in As a child I would play the piano every day, although this auxiliary has other uses as well. For further details see English modal verbs.

For details of the usage of the various constructions used to refer to the past, see Uses of English verb forms. Note that the past tense is also used in referring to some hypothetical situations, not necessarily connected with past time, as in if I tried or I wish I knew. (For the possible use of were in place of was in such instances, see English subjunctive.)

German[edit]

German uses two forms for the past tense.

• The preterite (Präteritum) (called the "imperfect" in older grammar books, but this, a borrowing from Latin terminology, ill describes it.)

• The perfect (Perfekt)

In southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the preterite is mostly used solely in writing, for example in stories. Use in speech is regarded as snobbish and thus very uncommon. South German dialects, such as the Bavarian dialect, as well as Yiddish, and Swiss German have no preterite, but only perfect constructs.

In certain regions, a few specific verbs are used in the preterite, for instance the modal verbs and the verbs haben (have) and sein (be).

• Es gab einmal ein kleines Mädchen, das Rotkäppchen hieß. (There was once a small girl who was called Little Red Riding Hood.)

In speech and informal writing, the Perfekt is used (e.g., Ich habe dies und das gesagt. (I said this and that)).

However, in the oral mode of North Germany, there is still a very important difference between the preterite and the perfect, and both tenses are consequently very common. The preterite is used for past actions when the focus is on the action, whilst the present perfect is used for past actions when the focus is on the present state of the subject as a result of a previous action. This is somewhat similar to the English usage of the preterite and the present perfect.

• Preterite: "Heute früh kam mein Freund." (my friend came early in the morning, and he is being talked about strictly in the past)

• Perfect: "Heute früh ist mein Freund gekommen." (my friend came early in the morning, but he is being talked about in the present)

Dutch[edit]

Dutch mainly uses these two past tenses:

• onvoltooid verleden tijd, which matches the English simple past and the German preterite, for example: Gisteren was ik daar ("I was there yesterday").

• voltooid tegenwoordige tijd, a present tense with the meaning of perfect. This form is made by combining a form of zijn ("to be") or hebben ("to have") with the notional verb, for example: Gisteren ben ik daar geweest. This also means "I was there yesterday", but just as it is the case for English constructions with the present perfect simple, this kind of formulation puts more emphasis on the "being finished"-aspect.

Less common is the voltooid verleden tijd, which corresponds to the English past perfect. It is formed by combining an onvoltooid verleden form of zijn ("to be") or hebben ("to have") with the notional verb, for example: Ik was daar voor gisteren al geweest. This means "I had been there before yesterday." This tense is used to indicate that one action in the past occurred before another past action, and that the action was fully finished before the second action took place.

Other Indo-European languages[edit]

In non-Germanic Indo-European languages, past marking is typically combined with a distinction between perfective and imperfective aspect, with the former reserved for single completed actions in the past. French for instance, has an imperfect tense form similar to that of German but used only for past habitual or past progressive contexts like "I used to..." or "I was doing...". Similar patterns extend across most languages of the Indo-European family right through to the Indic languages.

Unlike other Indo-European languages, in Slavic languages tense is independent of aspect, with imperfective and perfective aspects being indicated instead by means of prefixes, stem changes, or suppletion. In many West Slavic and East Slavic languages, the early Slavic past tenses have largely merged into a single past tense. In both West and East Slavic, verbs in the past tense are conjugated for gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and number (singular, plural).

French[edit]

French has numerous forms of the past tense including but not limited to:

• Past perfective (passé composé) e.g. J'ai mangé (I ate, using the form but not the meaning of I have eaten)

• Past imperfective (imparfait) e.g. Je mangeais (I was eating)

• Past historic or Simple past (passé simple) e.g. Je mangeai (I ate) (literary only)

• Pluperfect (Plus que parfait) e.g. J'avais mangé (I had eaten [before another event in the past])

• Recent past (passé recent) e.g. Je viens de manger (I just ate)

For more details, see French verbs.

African languages[edit]

Whilst in Semitic languages tripartite non-past/past imperfective/past perfective systems similar to those of most Indo-European languages are found, in the rest of Africa past tenses have very different forms from those found in European languages. Berber languages have only the perfective/imperfective distinction and lack a past imperfect.

Many non-Bantu Niger–Congo languages of West Africa do not mark past tense at all but instead have a form of perfect derived from a word meaning "to finish". Others, such as Ewe, distinguish only between future and non-future.

In complete contrast, Bantu languages such as Zulu have not only a past tense, but also a less remote proximal tense which is used for very recent past events and is never interchangeable with the ordinary past form. These languages also differ substantially from European languages in coding tense with prefixes instead of such suffixes as English -ed.

Other, smaller language families of Africa follow quite regional patterns. Thus the Sudanic languages of East Africa and adjacent Afro-Asiatic families are part of the same area with inflectional past-marking that extends into Europe, whereas more westerly Nilo-Saharan languages often do not have past tense.

Asian languages[edit]

Past tenses are found in a variety of Asian languages. These include the Indo-European languages Russian in North Asia and Persian, Tajik, Urdu, and Hindi in Southwest and South Asia; the Turkic languages Turkish, Turkmen, Kazakh, and Uyghur of Southwest and Central Asia; Arabic in Southwest Asia; Japanese; the Dravidian languages of India; the Uralic languages of Russia; Mongolic; and Korean. Languages in East Asia and Southeast Asia typically do not distinguish tense; in Mandarin Chinese, for example, the particle 了le when used immediately after a verb instead indicates perfective aspect.

In parts of islands in Southeast Asia, even less distinction is made, for instance in Indonesian and some other Austronesian languages. Past tenses, do, however, exist in most Oceanic languages.

The Americas[edit]

Among Native American languages there is a split between complete absence of past marking (especially common in Mesoamerica and the Pacific Northwest) and very complex tense marking with numerous specialised remoteness distinctions, as found for instance in Athabaskan languages and a few languages of the Amazon Basin. Some of these tenses can have specialised mythological significance and uses.

A number of Native American languages like Northern Paiute stand in contrast to European notions of tense because they always use relative tense, which means time relative to a reference point that may not coincide with the time an utterance is made.

New Guinea[edit]

Papuan languages of New Guinea almost always have remoteness distinctions in the past tense (though none are as elaborate as some native American languages), whilst indigenous Australian languages usually have a single past tense without remoteness distinctions.

Creole languages[edit]

Creole languages tend to make tense marking optional, and when tense is marked invariant pre-verbal markers are used.^[3]

Belizean Creole[edit]

In Belizean Creole, past tense marking is optional and is rarely used if a semantic temporal marker such as yestudeh "yesterday" is present.

Singaporean English Creole[edit]

Singaporean English Creole (Singlish) optionally marks the past tense, most often in irregular verbs (e.g., go → went) and regular verbs like accept which require an extra syllable for the past tense suffix -ed.

Hawaiian Creole English[edit]

Hawaiian Creole English^[4] optionally marks the past tense with the invariant pre-verbal marker wen or bin (especially older speakers) or haed (especially on the island Kauai). (Ai wen si om "I saw him"; Ai bin klin ap mai ples for da halade "I cleaned up my place for the holiday"; De haed plei BYU laes wik "They played BYU last week"). The past habitual marker is yustu (Yo mada yustu tink so "Your mother used to think so").

Haitian Creole[edit]

Haitian Creole^[5] can indicate past tense with the pre-verbal marker te (Li te vini "He (past) come", "He came").

Past tense

The past tense is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to place an action or situation in past time. In languages which have a past tense, it thus provides a grammatical means of indicating that the event being referred to took place in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs sang, went and was.

In some languages, the grammatical expression of past tense is combined with the expression of other categories such as mood and aspect (see tense–aspect–mood). Thus a language may have several types of past tense form, their use depending on what aspectual or other additional information is to be encoded. French, for example, has a compound past (passé composé) for expressing completed events, an imperfect for expressing events which were ongoing or repeated in the past, as well as several other past forms.

Some languages that grammaticalise for past tense do so by inflecting the verb, while others do so periphrastically using auxiliary verbs, also known as "verbal operators" (and some do both, as in the example of French given above). Not all languages grammaticalise verbs for past tense – Mandarin Chinese, for example, mainly uses lexical means (words like "yesterday" or "last week") to indicate that something took place in the past, although use can also be made of the tense/aspect markers le and guo.

The "past time" to which the past tense refers generally means the past relative to the moment of speaking, although in contexts where relative tense is employed (as in some instances of indirect speech) it may mean the past relative to some other time being under discussion.^[1] A language's past tense may also have other uses besides referring to past time; for example, in English and certain other languages, the past tense is sometimes used in referring to hypothetical situations, such as in condition clauses like If you loved me ..., where the past tense loved is used even though there may be no connection with past time.

Past tense can be indicated with the glossing abbreviation PST.

European languages[edit]

The European continent is heavily dominated by Indo-European languages, all of which have a past tense. In some cases the tense is formed inflectionally as in English see/saw or walk/walked and as in the French imperfect form, and sometimes it is formed periphrastically, as in the French passé composé form. Further, all of the non-Indo-European languages in Europe, such as Basque, Hungarian, and Finnish, also have a past tense.

Germanic languages[edit]

English[edit]

In English, the past tense (or preterite) is one of the inflected forms of a verb. The past tense of regular verbs is made by adding -d or -ed to the base form of the verb, while those of irregular verbs are formed in various different ways (such as see→saw, go→went, be→was/were). With regular and some irregular verbs, the past tense form also serves as a past participle. For full details of past tense formation, see English verbs.

Past events are often referred to using the present perfect construction, as in I have finished (also known as present in past). However this is not regarded as an instance of the past tense; instead it is viewed as a combination of present tense with perfect aspect, specifying a present state that results from past action.^[2] (It can be made into a past tense form by replacing the auxiliary have with had; see below.)

Various multi-word constructions exist for combining past tense with progressive (continuous) aspect, which denotes ongoing action; with perfect aspect; and with progressive and perfect aspects together. These and other common past tense constructions are listed below.

• The simple past consists of just the past tense (preterite) form of the verb (he walked, they flew, etc.), although when it is negated, emphasized or inverted it is sometimes necessary to unfuse the verb, using a periphrastic construction with did (as in did he walk? etc.) – see do-support. The simple past is used for describing single occurrences or habitual occurrences in the past, and sometimes for states existing in the past.

• The past progressive (past continuous) is formed using the simple past of be (was or were) with the main verb's present participle: He was going. This form indicates that an action was ongoing at the past time under consideration.

• The past perfect combines had (the simple past of have) with the past participle of the main verb: We had shouted. This denotes that an action occurred before a specified time in the past, and therefore has similar function to the pluperfect found in some languages.

• The past perfect progressive combines had (the simple past of have) with been (the past participle of be) and the present participle of the main verb: You had been waiting.

• The expression used to (with the infinitive of the main verb) denotes a past habitual situation (I used to play football when I was young), although with a stative verb it can just indicate that a state was continuously in effect (I used to belong to that club). It is often used to emphasize that something is no longer the case. Another way of referring to past habitual action is to use would, as in As a child I would play the piano every day, although this auxiliary has other uses as well. For further details see English modal verbs.

For details of the usage of the various constructions used to refer to the past, see Uses of English verb forms. Note that the past tense is also used in referring to some hypothetical situations, not necessarily connected with past time, as in if I tried or I wish I knew. (For the possible use of were in place of was in such instances, see English subjunctive.)

German[edit]

German uses two forms for the past tense.

• The preterite (Präteritum) (called the "imperfect" in older grammar books, but this, a borrowing from Latin terminology, ill describes it.)

• The perfect (Perfekt)

In southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the preterite is mostly used solely in writing, for example in stories. Use in speech is regarded as snobbish and thus very uncommon. South German dialects, such as the Bavarian dialect, as well as Yiddish, and Swiss German have no preterite, but only perfect constructs.

In certain regions, a few specific verbs are used in the preterite, for instance the modal verbs and the verbs haben (have) and sein (be).

• Es gab einmal ein kleines Mädchen, das Rotkäppchen hieß. (There was once a small girl who was called Little Red Riding Hood.)

In speech and informal writing, the Perfekt is used (e.g., Ich habe dies und das gesagt. (I said this and that)).

However, in the oral mode of North Germany, there is still a very important difference between the preterite and the perfect, and both tenses are consequently very common. The preterite is used for past actions when the focus is on the action, whilst the present perfect is used for past actions when the focus is on the present state of the subject as a result of a previous action. This is somewhat similar to the English usage of the preterite and the present perfect.

• Preterite: "Heute früh kam mein Freund." (my friend came early in the morning, and he is being talked about strictly in the past)

• Perfect: "Heute früh ist mein Freund gekommen." (my friend came early in the morning, but he is being talked about in the present)

Dutch[edit]

Dutch mainly uses these two past tenses:

• onvoltooid verleden tijd, which matches the English simple past and the German preterite, for example: Gisteren was ik daar ("I was there yesterday").

• voltooid tegenwoordige tijd, a present tense with the meaning of perfect. This form is made by combining a form of zijn ("to be") or hebben ("to have") with the notional verb, for example: Gisteren ben ik daar geweest. This also means "I was there yesterday", but just as it is the case for English constructions with the present perfect simple, this kind of formulation puts more emphasis on the "being finished"-aspect.

Less common is the voltooid verleden tijd, which corresponds to the English past perfect. It is formed by combining an onvoltooid verleden form of zijn ("to be") or hebben ("to have") with the notional verb, for example: Ik was daar voor gisteren al geweest. This means "I had been there before yesterday." This tense is used to indicate that one action in the past occurred before another past action, and that the action was fully finished before the second action took place.

Other Indo-European languages[edit]

In non-Germanic Indo-European languages, past marking is typically combined with a distinction between perfective and imperfective aspect, with the former reserved for single completed actions in the past. French for instance, has an imperfect tense form similar to that of German but used only for past habitual or past progressive contexts like "I used to..." or "I was doing...". Similar patterns extend across most languages of the Indo-European family right through to the Indic languages.

Unlike other Indo-European languages, in Slavic languages tense is independent of aspect, with imperfective and perfective aspects being indicated instead by means of prefixes, stem changes, or suppletion. In many West Slavic and East Slavic languages, the early Slavic past tenses have largely merged into a single past tense. In both West and East Slavic, verbs in the past tense are conjugated for gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and number (singular, plural).

French[edit]

French has numerous forms of the past tense including but not limited to:

• Past perfective (passé composé) e.g. J'ai mangé (I ate, using the form but not the meaning of I have eaten)

• Past imperfective (imparfait) e.g. Je mangeais (I was eating)

• Past historic or Simple past (passé simple) e.g. Je mangeai (I ate) (literary only)

• Pluperfect (Plus que parfait) e.g. J'avais mangé (I had eaten [before another event in the past])

• Recent past (passé recent) e.g. Je viens de manger (I just ate)

For more details, see French verbs.

African languages[edit]

Whilst in Semitic languages tripartite non-past/past imperfective/past perfective systems similar to those of most Indo-European languages are found, in the rest of Africa past tenses have very different forms from those found in European languages. Berber languages have only the perfective/imperfective distinction and lack a past imperfect.

Many non-Bantu Niger–Congo languages of West Africa do not mark past tense at all but instead have a form of perfect derived from a word meaning "to finish". Others, such as Ewe, distinguish only between future and non-future.

In complete contrast, Bantu languages such as Zulu have not only a past tense, but also a less remote proximal tense which is used for very recent past events and is never interchangeable with the ordinary past form. These languages also differ substantially from European languages in coding tense with prefixes instead of such suffixes as English -ed.

Other, smaller language families of Africa follow quite regional patterns. Thus the Sudanic languages of East Africa and adjacent Afro-Asiatic families are part of the same area with inflectional past-marking that extends into Europe, whereas more westerly Nilo-Saharan languages often do not have past tense.

Asian languages[edit]

Past tenses are found in a variety of Asian languages. These include the Indo-European languages Russian in North Asia and Persian, Tajik, Urdu, and Hindi in Southwest and South Asia; the Turkic languages Turkish, Turkmen, Kazakh, and Uyghur of Southwest and Central Asia; Arabic in Southwest Asia; Japanese; the Dravidian languages of India; the Uralic languages of Russia; Mongolic; and Korean. Languages in East Asia and Southeast Asia typically do not distinguish tense; in Mandarin Chinese, for example, the particle 了le when used immediately after a verb instead indicates perfective aspect.

In parts of islands in Southeast Asia, even less distinction is made, for instance in Indonesian and some other Austronesian languages. Past tenses, do, however, exist in most Oceanic languages.

The Americas[edit]

Among Native American languages there is a split between complete absence of past marking (especially common in Mesoamerica and the Pacific Northwest) and very complex tense marking with numerous specialised remoteness distinctions, as found for instance in Athabaskan languages and a few languages of the Amazon Basin. Some of these tenses can have specialised mythological significance and uses.

A number of Native American languages like Northern Paiute stand in contrast to European notions of tense because they always use relative tense, which means time relative to a reference point that may not coincide with the time an utterance is made.

New Guinea[edit]

Papuan languages of New Guinea almost always have remoteness distinctions in the past tense (though none are as elaborate as some native American languages), whilst indigenous Australian languages usually have a single past tense without remoteness distinctions.

Creole languages[edit]

Creole languages tend to make tense marking optional, and when tense is marked invariant pre-verbal markers are used.^[3]

Belizean Creole[edit]

In Belizean Creole, past tense marking is optional and is rarely used if a semantic temporal marker such as yestudeh "yesterday" is present.

Singaporean English Creole[edit]

Singaporean English Creole (Singlish) optionally marks the past tense, most often in irregular verbs (e.g., go → went) and regular verbs like accept which require an extra syllable for the past tense suffix -ed.

Hawaiian Creole English[edit]

Hawaiian Creole English^[4] optionally marks the past tense with the invariant pre-verbal marker wen or bin (especially older speakers) or haed (especially on the island Kauai). (Ai wen si om "I saw him"; Ai bin klin ap mai ples for da halade "I cleaned up my place for the holiday"; De haed plei BYU laes wik "They played BYU last week"). The past habitual marker is yustu (Yo mada yustu tink so "Your mother used to think so").

Haitian Creole[edit]

Haitian Creole^[5] can indicate past tense with the pre-verbal marker te (Li te vini "He (past) come", "He came").