Running head: MEANING AND USE FOR ENGLISH TENSES 1

The Semantic Meaning and Use for English Simple Present and Simple Past

Xiayu Guo

Colorado State University

Introduction

English verb tense is not an easy topic to learn for English learners because they need to

analyze the context carefully when they decide the verb tense in sentences. Sometime learners

simply consider the time of utterance in one sentence; that is, they do not integrate the whole

context. If we want to identify what verb tense should be used in a given context, we have to

make a careful distinction between “tense” and “time”. Time exists independently of language.

Tense is a linguistic concept; it denotes the form taken by the verb to locate the situation referred

to in time (Declerck, Reed, & Cappelle, 2006). The semantic categories present and past are

inherently relational, which means one time is defined by its relation to another (Huddleston, &

Pullum, 2012). For example, in the sentence, He died of lung cancer, the time of dying is past.

This is understood as a time earlier than now, than the time at which this sentence is produced.

We speak of the two terms in the relationship as the time referred to and the time of orientation

(Huddleston, & Pullum, 2012). Tenses that express a single temporal relation between the time

of the situation referred to and an orientation time other than the zero-time (moment of speech)

will be referred to as relative tenses. These temporal relations can be considered in one of the

following ways (Declerck, Reed, & Cappelle, 2006, p.25):

• Anteriority: the time of the situation is represented as preceding the orientation time.

• Simultaneity: the time of the situation is represented as coinciding with the orientation

time.

• Futurity: the time of the situation is represented as following the orientation time.

In past tense sentences, the time referred to is prior to the time of orientation, and in present tense

sentences, the time referred to is simultaneous with the time of orientation (Larsen-Freeman, &

Celce-Murcia, 2016).
MEANING AND USE FOR ENGLISH TENSES 3

In this paper, the semantic meaning and use of present tense and past tense are discussed.

Specifically, there are several sections including non-present use of the present tense, the

meaning of the simple present tense, the meaning of the past tense with reference of

past/present/future time and anaphoric/cataphoric use of the past tense.

Simple Present Tense

Simple present tense is one of the basic tenses in English. It is used to describe habits,

unchanging situations, general truths and fixed arrangements (Larsen-Freeman, & Celce-Murcia,

2016). The simple present tense is easy to form. We only need to use the base form or the third

person singular of the verb. However, when the simple present tense is used in a given context,

we are supposed to consider several aspects, including meaning and use.

The Meaning of Simple Present Tense

For simple present tense, when it used to refer to present time, there are three meanings:

state present, habitual present and instantaneous present (Quirk, 2005). The first one is state

present. With stative verb senses, the present is used without reference to a specific time. The

state presentation is also used to illustrate eternal truths such as proverbial, scientific and

geographical statements (see examples 1-3 below).

Ex 1) The sun rises in the east.

Ex 2) Honesty is a good policy.

Ex 3) The Nile is the longest river in Africa.

Sometimes, there are statements which are not included in proverbs, science and so on, but our

knowledge tells us the time span of the state is to a greater or lesser degree restricted, such as the

examples below:

Ex 4) He is the tallest in the class.

Ex 5) Everyone likes Tom.

The habitual present is very similar to the state one. It implies inherently unrestricted

time span. In the habitual meaning, the verb refers to the whole sequences of an event or a

behavior repeated over and over again within a specific period of time. Although the habitual

present resembles state present, there is a noteworthy difference: the sign of habitual present is

that we can add frequency adverb in a sentence (Quirk, 2005). For example, I usually go to

school by bus. Some habitual statements are contextually incomplete without an adverb, such as

we go to hospital. The state present always refers to something which is obtained at the time of

speaking, but it is not necessarily true for the habitual present (Quirk, 2005).

The instantaneous present occurs where the verb referring to the single action is begun

and completed at the moment of speech. It is also called synopses and stage directions. The

situation of instantaneous present contains commentaries, demonstration and other self-

commentaries, special exclamatory sentences with initial adverb and performatives. Examples

for each of these types are provided below:

• Commentaries: James passes the ball to Black!

• Demonstration and self-commentaries: I enclose the form of application in the envelope.

• Special exclamatory: Spring comes!

• Performative: We thank you for your efforts.

The Use of Simple Present tense

Typically, the present tense has non-past use, but it is also used to give a timeless,

permanent perspective to what could also have been conceptualized as past occurrences

(Huddleston, & Pullum, 2012). The timeless use of the simple present tense means sometimes it

can express the events which occurred in the past or will occur in the future. According to
MEANING AND USE FOR ENGLISH TENSES 5

Huddleston, & Pullum (2012), the simple present tense can be used to focus on present existence

of works created in the past. Many works, such as writing, can still be read now. We can talk

about them from the perspective of their present and potentially permanent existence rather than

of their past creation. For example, in the sentence “That’s not what the Bible says.”, the Bible is

created in the past, but it has permanence and has been preserved. Similarly, photographs and

paintings can give a permanence to what would be a transient historical occurrence, and captions

use the present in newspapers (see examples 6-7 below):

Ex 6) Trump forces White House Aides to Sign Nondisclosure Papers.

Ex 7) Computer Chip Visionaries Win Turing Award.

Past events can also be expressed in simple present tense when they are as a part of a

chronical forming a permanent record of history, like “Albert becomes Emperor.”. However,

sometimes the historical present describes the past as it is happening now and it conveys

something of immediacy of eye-witness account (Quirk, 2005). Linguists are aware that speakers

and writers make their narratives of past events more immediate and vivid if they recount them

in the present tense. It represents the suspension of past axis to achieve a dramatic effect so it can

be regarded as a metaphorical use (Larsen-Freeman, & Celce-Murcia, 2016). It is used for past

time situations in informal conversational narration or fiction.

A different use of the simple present tense in reference to the past is the past evidential

use with verbs of communication (Quirk, 2005), as found in the two examples below:

Ex 8) Your mother tells me you are not at home tomorrow.

Ex 9) I hear we are getting some new neighbors.

In these two sentences, the mother’s telling of whether the listener is at home and their hearing

about their new neighbors are past occurrences, but the purpose of sentences is to impart this
MEANING AND USE FOR ENGLISH TENSES 6

content or to seek confirmation for it. The verbs commonly used in this way are say, tell, inform,

understand, hear and gather (Huddleston, & Pullum, 2012).

Besides indicating past events, simple present tense can also refer to future time situation.

When it is used to explain a future situation, the sentence must involve something to be known

already in the present. The three most common uses are cyclic events in nature, scheduled events

and conditionals (Huddleston, & Pullum, 2012).

The first use is to describe a cyclic event. For some future occurrences, the scientific

evidence can be found. The simple present tense is used for recurrent events whose time of

occurrence can be scientifically calculated, but the weather condition is an exception. Although

we can forecast weather condition in next few days by means of meteorology, we do not use

simple present for future weather because the weather can only be predicted but not decided by

human beings. We say It’s going to rain and It will rain soon but we do not say It rains soon.

Such events are not conceived of as being within the domain of what is known (Huddleston, &

Pullum, 2012).

The second use is for schedule events. The simple present tense expresses future

situations that have already been arranged. Scheduled events also can be seen within the domain

of what is known. Although it is not theoretical knowledge, it is sufficient in the ordinary use of

language.

The third use is for conditionals. We can produce a sentence to indicate that the

consequence of the condition being fulfilled is already decided. For example, the sentence “If

you don’t solve this problem, you are fired.” is said by someone with the power to fire you and

would serve as a threat. The condition “you are fired” is decided if you do not solve the problem;

therefore, we use simple present tense to indicate this condition.

Simple Past Tense

The regular past tense indicative form consists of the stem of the verb and a suffix usually

written as –ed. The fact that the addition of the suffix is sometimes accompanied by a minor

spelling adjustment to the stem is not considered as relevant. Verbs that form their past tense this

way are called regular verbs or weak verbs. Additionally, there are some verbs in English that are

irregular verbs or strong verbs (Declerck, Reed, & Cappelle, 2006). These verbs do not form

their past tense by the addition of a suffix to the stem.

The simple past tense, sometimes called the preterite (Huddleston, & Pullum, 2012), is

used to talk about a complete action in a time before now. The time of the action can be in the

recent past or the distant past but the action duration is not important.

The Meaning of Simple Past Tense

When the simple present tense is used in a given context, it combines two features of

meaning (Quirk, 2005, p.183):

a) The event has taken place in the past, with the gap between its completion and the present

moment.

b) The speaker/writer must have in mind a definite time at which the event took place.

One example of the first meaning is I stayed in New York for a month. The implication of this

sentence is that I am no longer in New York now. The second meaning is explicitly shown in co-

occurrence relations between past tense and past time adverbs such as yesterday, last week, last

year, etc. It’s required that the speaker should be able to count on hearer’s assumption that he/she

has a specific time in mind. In this case, the past meaning of definite past time is an equivalent

(Quirk, 2005).
MEANING AND USE FOR ENGLISH TENSES 8

Just as the simple present does not always refer to present time, the simple past

occasionally reflects something happens now or in the future. When it occurs, there are three

special meanings to mention (Quirk, 2005, p.187):

a) In indirect speech, the past tense of verb makes the verb of subordinate clause past tense

as well, but this phenomenon is optional. It results in an anachronistic use of the past

tense for present time. For example: Did you say you had/have my textbook?

b) The attitudinal past is used with verbs expressing violation or mental state, reflects the

tentative attitude of the speaker rather than the past time. For example, in the sentence

“Do/Did you have a cup of coffee?”, do and did are both grammatical but the latter one is

more polite.

c) The hypothetical past is used in some subordinate clauses especially in if-clauses to

express what is contrary to the belief or expectation of the speaker. For example: If I told

him about that, he would finish the task successfully.

The Use of Simple Past Tense

According to Quirk (2005) and Larsen-Freeman (2016), simple past tense has three

common use. The first use is situational use. Definiteness caused by general knowledge may be

invoke to explain the use of simple past in historical or biographical situation which have

specific places, people and objects as their topics. See the examples below:

Ex 10) This picture was painted by my grandfather.

Ex 11) I have a friend who was at school with Mary.

Both of two sentences happened with a specific person (my grandfather) and specific place

(school), so they can be regarded as examples for situational use.

The second use is anaphoric/cataphoric use. We call the use of simple past tense

“anaphoric” where the time in the past to which the reference is made is already indicated by the

previous use of the past tense. For example, in the sentence “When the teacher entered the

classroom, students were suddenly quiet.”, the second verb were is used because students’

behavior is indicated by the subordinate clause the teacher entered. In addition, sometimes in a

past tense sentence, we can find adverb such as last year and yesterday, this is the cataphoric use

definite past. It only matters that the time should in principle be specifiable; it means even very

unspecific time adverbs such as once and when are enough to make past tense sentences

grammatical (Quirk, 2005).

The third use of simple past is to create a sense of remoteness (Larsen-Freeman, & Celce-

Murcia, 2016). The remoteness comes in the feeling that the event is over and done with. The

Feeling of remoteness can apply to notions other than time. As it was mentioned before, simple

past has hypothetical meaning. The example was If I told him about that, he would finish the task

successfully. In this sentence, the remoteness is due to the hypothetical conditional nature of this

statements. In fact, this is an imaginative conditional and remote from reality. The past tense in

the conditional clause refers to the present time (Larsen-Freeman, & Celce-Murcia, 2016).

Normally, there are six conditions for the notion of remoteness apply in sentences (Larsen-

Freeman, & Celce-Murcia, 2016). These conditions are described below:

a) A definite single completed event/action in the past.

b) Habitual or repeated action/event in the past.

c) An event with duration that applied in the past with the implication that it no longer

applies at present.

d) With states in the past.

e) Imaginative conditional in the subordinate clause that refers to the past time.

f) Social distance.

So as we can see, the simple past is used when the speaker conceptualizes an event but as remote

in some way.

Conclusion

Simple present and simple past tenses are basic English verb tenses. They are used in

high frequency in sentences and contexts. However, when we use simple present and simple

past, many elements should be taken into account. We need to consider the meanings and uses of

them. Sometimes, simple present can indicate events or actions which occur in the future or

occurred in the past because they are common knowledge or captions of news and TV programs.

Similarly, simple past has many other meanings and uses such as remoteness, politeness and

imaginary hypothesis. After we analyze the sentences and contexts, we can use the tenses

correctly.
MEANING AND USE FOR ENGLISH TENSES 11

References

Diane Larsen-Freeman & Marianne Celca-Murcia. (2015). The Grammar Book: Form, Meaning,

and Use for English Language Teachers. National Geographic Learning.

Huddleston, R. & Pullum, J. K. (2002). Cambridge Grammar of English Language. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Quirk, R. G. Greenbaum, G. Leech & J. Svartvik. (1985). A comprehensive Grammar of the

English Language. New York: Longman London and New York.

Declerck, R., Reed, S., & Cappelle, B. (2006). The grammar of the English tense system: a

comprehensive analysis. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.