This second lecture of Lesson 7 explains English verb forms and verb tenses.

First, let’s discuss main verbs and helping verbs.

Main verbs express meaning.

Two types of main verbs are action verbs and nonaction verbs.

Action verbs express an action that is being performed. Some examples of action
verbs are sell, take, decide, go, perform, and cook.

Nonaction verbs do not express an action; they express states (be, appear, and
seem), emotions (love, like, dislike), senses (see, hear), ownership (have, own),
measurement (weigh, cost), and mental activity (know, believe).

Nonaction verbs are also known as stative verbs, which will be discussed in detail
later in the lecture.
Helping verbs, also known as auxiliary verbs, work with main verbs to create tense,
mood, and voice. Here are three principal helping verbs that will be explained in the
next few slides.

• Be
• Have
• Do

Note: this lecture deals with verb tenses. Mood and voice will be discussed in
Lesson 8 of this course.
Another helping verb is will.

Will belongs to the class of helping verbs called modals. Modals will be fully
discussed in the third lecture of Lesson 7.

Unlike the helping verbs be, have, and do, the helping verb will never changes its
form.

Will is used in conjunction with a main verb to form the future tense.
This slide shows how four helping verbs, be, have, do, and will are used.

Be: Helps form progressive tenses and passive voice (passive voice will be fully discussed in
Lesson 8), as in
“Jack is working at a great company” and “A good benefits package was provided.”

Have: Helps form the perfect tenses, as in “Jack has worked at the company for five years” and
“That company had manufactured paper clips.”

Do: Helps form negative sentences in the simple present and past tenses and to form questions
in the simple present and past tenses, as in “The job didn’t feel like work to my dad” and “Does
your job give you a sense of accomplishment?”

Do can also be used to create emphasis, as in “My dad really did work hard for that company.”

Will: Helps form the future tense, as in “My son will work in that company someday.”

Please check the document in Lesson 7 called “Structures and Time Meanings of Verb Tenses”
to see how to use all of these four helping verbs to create the twelve verb tenses.
Each verb may be written in five different forms in English. The verb forms are
determined by the subject, tense, voice, and mood of the sentence.

The base form is the simplest form and is what you find listed in the dictionary.

The –s form means that the verb ends in s. The –s form is used only when the verb
is third-person singular in the present tense.

The present participle is also known as the –ing form: the verb ends in –ing.

The past form is often referred to as the –ed form because all regular verbs in this
form end in –ed. However, irregular verbs in the past form are all different.

The past participle of a regular verb also ends in –ed, so it looks just like the past
form. However, irregular verbs in the past participle form are all different.

While regular past forms and regular past participles look alike, they are used
differently to form different tenses, moods, and voices.

The next slide has examples of the five forms of some regular and irregular verbs.
This chart shows the five forms of the regular verb decide, the irregular verb have,
which can be either a main or a helping verb, and the irregular verb do, which can
also be either a main verb or helping verb.

Notice that verbs are irregular only in the past form and in the past participle
forms.

Some spelling rules apply to –s forms and –ing forms, but that does not make them
irregular. For example, deciding drops the “e” before the “-ing.” That is not an
irregularity; it is just a spelling rule.

Here is what is contained in this chart:

• The five forms of decide, a regular main verb, are decide, decides, deciding,
decided, and decided.
• The five forms of have, an irregular verb that may be a main verb or a helping
verb, are have, has, having, had, and had.
• The five forms of do, an irregular verb that may be a main verb or a helping
verb, are do, does, doing, did, and done. Note that doing and done are not
used as helping verbs.

8
The verb be is the most irregular verb in English. It can actually be written in eight
different forms, changing according to the subject, tense, and structure of the
sentence. Be may be either a main verb or a helping verb.

The base form is be.

In the present tense, when the subject is I, the verb form is am. When the subjects
are he, she, or it, the verb form is is. When the subjects are you, we, and they, the
verb form is are.

The present participle of be is being.

In the past tense, when the subject is I, he, she, or it, the verb form is was. When
the subject is you, we, or they, the verb form is were.

The past participle form of be is been.

Now that we have defined main verbs and helping verbs and the way they change
forms, we can talk about how they are used to form the verb tenses.
Main verbs and helping verbs work together to form twelve verb tenses.

Verb tenses consist of two parts: time and aspect.

The three main times are present, past, and future, indicating the time of a verb’s
action or being.

Each of the three main times may be expressed in four aspects: simple, progressive,
perfect, and perfect progressive.

Twelve verb tenses result from the three main tenses each written in their four
aspects. The next slide shows you the names of these twelve combinations.
Use the verb forms and helping verbs to create twelve tenses. A verb tense reflects
time and aspect—the time that an action takes place and how that action extends
over time.

The chart on this slide shows the twelve tenses, the result of combining the three
fundamental times, present, past, and future, and their four aspects, simple,
progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive.

The present tenses are called simple present, present progressive, present perfect,
and present perfect progressive.

The past tenses are called simple past, past progressive, past perfect, and past
perfect progressive.

The future tenses are called simple future, future progressive, future perfect, and
future perfect progressive.

Please check the document in Lesson 7 called “Structures and Time Meanings of
Verb Tenses.” The chart shows exactly how the helping verbs and main verbs form
statements, questions, and negatives in each of the tenses, and it also provides
short example sentences.
The chart on this slide shows examples of short simple sentences illustrating the simple and
progressive verb tenses.

• Simple present: “We study.” Present progressive: “He is studying.”

• Simple past: “She studied.”
• Past progressive: “You were studying.”
• Simple future: “I will study.”
• Future progressive: “They will be studying.”

*Each aspect is used to reference “that time.” When is “that time?” It’s the time that all speakers
and writers refer to, reflected by the verb tense. For example, if I say “I talked to Tom last
Thursday,” everything I say will be in the past because “last Thursday” is “that time,” or my
reference point. The time can be a point in time, such as “Thursday night,” or it can be a period
of time, such as “summer vacation.”

Interestingly, the term “simple” is a misnomer. Of all the aspects, the simple aspect is the one
that’s not so simple! We use this form for many actions not related to time; in fact, sometimes
it’s called “timeless.” For example, if we say “The sun sets in the west,” it doesn’t happen just
today, it happens every day. Similarly, if we say “Our family goes to France every summer,” we
use the simple present even though we’re not necessarily in France right now.
The chart on this slide shows examples of short simple sentences illustrating the
perfect and perfect progressive verb tenses.

• Present perfect: “We have studied.”

• Present perfect progressive: “He has been studying.”
• Past perfect: “She had studied.”
• Past perfect progressive: “You had been studying.”
• Future perfect: “I will have studied.”
• Future perfect progressive: “They will have been studying.”

It is important to be able to identify the structure of each verb tense AND you need
to know when each tense is appropriately used at which times.

Please check the document in Lesson 7 called “Structures and Time Meanings of
Verb Tenses.”
Another topic related to verbs is stative verbs. These are also known as nonaction
verbs.
Stative verbs fall into the following categories:

Verbs that show thought or opinion, such as know and believe, as in the sentence “I
know her motives.”

Verbs that show emotion, such as love and need, as in the sentence “I love Fido.”

Verbs that show possession, such as belong and have, as in the sentence ”The
suitcase belongs to me.”

Verbs that show senses, such as taste and see, as in the sentence “Frog legs taste
like chicken.”
Stative verbs are NOT written in the progressive tenses (not with be plus –ing
verbs).

Here are some examples:

The sentence “George believes in hard work” uses the stative verb believe in the
simple present tense. The sentence “George is believing in hard work” is incorrect
because a stative is a state, not an action in progress.

“Do you see what I mean?” uses the stative verb see correctly in the simple present
tense. “Are you seeing what I mean?” is an incorrect use of see in the present
progressive tense.

“My sister loved her old house” uses the stative verb love correctly in the simple
past tense. The sentence “My sister was loving her old house” is incorrect and
awkward-sounding because her emotion is a state of being.

Some idiomatic and colloquial expressions use the progressive forms, such as “I’m
seeing things!” and “I’m loving this,” but these are not traditional uses.
Some verbs can be both stative and action verbs, depending on their meaning.

One example is the verb think. As a verb that expresses one’s opinion, it is stative
and not used in the progressive tenses.

It is fine to write “I think your house is beautiful” to state your opinion about the
house. However, you may not write “I am thinking that your house is beautiful” to
state your opinion about the house.

The verb think may also be used as an action verb, when the person is actually
physically thinking rather than stating an opinion. As an action verb, think may be
written in a progressive tense, like this: “I am thinking about my house right now.”
This has been the second lecture of Lesson 7.

There is a Pause & Process section to look at next, which contains a “Check Your
Knowledge” exercise.

If you have any questions, please post them in the Discussion Board “Ask the
Instructor” forum.

The third lecture of Lesson 7 explains modal auxiliary verbs.