How Many Tenses in English?

 

Most modern grammar writers argue that there are only two tenses in English, past and present. We talk about the future using various modal verbs, including WILL, because we are usually talking about our perception of the future. The example you give...seems pretty nonsensical to me.

In the terminology of linguistics, English is a language with only two tenses: past and present.

Linguistics is a useful science. Because it is a science, it needs numerous precise terms that enable its students to make fine distinctions about the function of words in different languages.

The focus of linguistics is not English, but all the languages of the world. Students of this demanding science need to distinguish between tense and aspect; between adjectives that describe people and adjectives that describe inanimate objects.

Words like determiner, intensifier, modal, and word class are suited to making finer distinctions than adjective, adverb, helping verb, and part of speech. But I find that the older terms serve me adequately in explaining basic usage to students for whom a little grammar goes a long way.

How many tenses in English? The answer all depends upon whom you ask and what meaning you attach to the grammatical term tense.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines grammatical tense as “any one of the different forms or modifications (or word groups) in the conjugation of a verb which indicate the different times (past, present, or future) at which the action or state denoted by it is viewed as happening or existing.”

Most ESL sites set the number of English tenses at twelve. One site I found adds a thirteenth tense to accommodate the way we express the future with going and an infinitive: I’m going to paint the garage in the morning.

In the realm of linguistics, English has only two tenses: present and past because according to linguistics terminology, a tense is indicated by a distinctive verb form. “I sing” is in the present tense because the idea of present time is expressed in the single form sing.

“I sang” is past tense because the idea of past time is expressed in the single form sang.

What I and a great many other English teachers still call “future tense” is not a tense according to linguistics terminology because it requires a helping verb (modal). “I will sing” is not a separate tense, but an aspect of the present tense.

For what I do, such distinctions seem unnecessarily confusing. I do not write for grammarians or students of linguistics; I don’t have the training or knowledge to do so. My focus is basic English usage. From my point of view, English has three main tenses: present, past, and future. Each of these main tenses has sub-tenses. Here are the twelve English tenses as conventionally taught:

Simple Present: He sings.
Present Perfect: He has sung.
Present Continuous: He is singing.
Present Perfect Continuous: He has been singing.

Simple Past: He sang.
Past Perfect: He had sung.
Past Continuous: He was singing.
Past Perfect Continuous: He had been singing.

Simple Future: He will sing.
Future Continuous: He will be singing.
Future Perfect: He will have sung.
Future Perfect Continuous: He will have been singing.

Note: The continuous tenses are also known as progressive tenses.

 

From: Daily Writing Tips

7 Types of Hyphenation That May Seem Wrong But Aren’t

 

Compound modifier -- two or more words that combine to modify a noun -- are usually hyphenated to signal that link (only before the noun, however, and not if, as with “income tax” and many other permanent compounds, the open compound is in the dictionary). Even though the relationship often seems obvious, this is language law. Phrasal adjectives, however, aren’t the only grammatical category in which hyphens are required even though they don’t seem necessary. Here are seven others:

1. Job Titles

Some job titles, such as secretary-treasurer, are hyphenated to signal the combined roles. Others, such as secretary-general (the title of the head of the United Nations), retain this form as a holdover from a time when hyphenation of compound nouns was rampant, though technically, general is an adjective modifying secretary (as in the example of president-elect, below). However, this usage is an anomaly: similar terms like “attorney general” and “major general” are open.

Note that the adjective+noun combination “vice president” is open, but some other such compounds are hyphenated (vice-consul) or closed (viceroy).

2. Compound Nouns

A handful of noun compounds stubbornly resist the usual usage evolution of open, hyphenated, and closed (or sometimes open to closed without the hyphenation middleman): The ones I can think of are by-product, life-form, light-year, and mind-set.

Many people treat these artificially preserved throwbacks incorrectly -- the first and last compounds are often erroneously closed, and the hyphen is frequently omitted and a letter space inserted in the second and third ones -- and why shouldn’t they? Omitting hyphens and treating these words as open or closed compounds doesn’t violate any scientific laws. However, until dictionaries respond to the attainment of a tipping point where most people are writing such terms incorrectly, these words should be hyphenated.

(Light-year may someday be closed, but because the first element of life-form ends with a vowel, it will likely remain hyphenated. On that note, the disinclination to close this type of open compounds affects other terms, such as shape-shifter.)

3. Compound Verbs

When you use two words together to refer to a single action, such as referring to air-conditioning a house, jump-starting a car, or mass-producing a product, a seemingly extraneous hyphen is required. (The same is true regardless of the form of the verb: air-condition and air-conditioned -- but “air conditioning.”)

4. Fractions

Hyphens in compound numbers such as twenty-one seem natural, but hyphenation of fractions (one-third) is counterintuitive. How many thirds? One. One is an adjective that modifies the noun third, so why hyphenate them unless they’re linking to modify a noun (“one-third full”)? I don’t make the rules; I just follow them.

5. Homographs

Sometimes, prefixes you’d expect to be closed up to the root word are hyphenated, because closing them up would cause confusion with identical words with distinct meanings. Examples include resign/re-sign, resent/re-sent, and recreation/re-creation. (A rare case of a similar pair with a prefix other than re- is unionized/un-ionized.)

6. Prefixes

Generally, permanent compounds beginning with the prefixes all-, ex-, and self- are hyphenated: Examples include all-around, ex-governor, and self-control. (Selfish and selfless, as well as the unfortunate unselfconscious, are exceptions with self-.)

Some words beginning with co- (co-chair) and pro- (pro-choice) just look wrong closed up and are anomalously hyphenated, as are words in which the last letter of the prefix and the first letter of the root word are the same: anti-intellectual, co-owner, ultra-aggressive.

Words beginning with non- are almost always closed, but occasionally they’re seen hyphenated -- and for good reason: “Nonlife-threatening injury” is an awkward treatment. Insert a hyphen when the prefix precedes a hyphenated phrasal adjective.

And why, if we refer to the early or late part of an era, such as a decade or a century (“early 1920s,” “late nineteenth century”), no hyphen is used, but a reference to the middle of a period requires one, as in mid-1970s or mid-century? Consistency would call for referring to “the middle 1970s” or “the middle of the century,” but mid- has replaced this usage.

7. Suffixes

Constructions such as president-elect may seem to be unnecessarily burdened with a hyphen, but they’re equivalent to modified phrases such as daughter-in-law. (Note, though, that such constructions do not include a hyphen when the first element is an open compound, such as in “vice president elect.”)

However, “editor in chief” shed its connective tissue long go without difficulty (though some people still incorrectly hyphenate the phrase), so similar constructions may follow suit. For now, though, go with the flow.

From: Daily Writing Tips

10 Types of Hyphenation Errors

 

1. Omitting Hyphens in Phrasal Adjectives

Some phrasal adjectives (including “civil rights,” “stock market,” and “high school”) don’t require hyphenation when they appear before a noun; they’re so well entrenched in the language that no risk of ambiguity exists, and their status is enshrined by inclusion in dictionaries.

But when two words team together to describe a noun, they’re usually hyphenated. (Leave them open after a noun, however.) If you can’t find them in your well-thumbed dictionary, attach them -- and don’t hesitate to link more than two words: “The company instituted a pay-as-you-go plan.”

2. Adding Hyphens to Compound Words

Compound words come in three forms: open (“sand dollar”), hyphenated (sand-blind), and closed (sandbag). As you see from these examples, compounds including the same particular word are not necessarily treated the same; compounding is a random process related to usage. (Popular treatment of long-hyphenated compounds changes so rapidly that dictionaries change them in new editions to reflect prevailing usage; pigeonhole -- formerly pigeon-hole -- is just one example.)

3. Adding Hyphens to Prefixes

Prefixes, on the other hand, are almost always closed up to the root word. Exceptions include when the root word is a proper name (pre-Christian) and when the prefix ends and the root word begins with an i (anti-inflammatory). Note, however, that this is not true in the case of e (preempt). Another exception is words beginning with c preceded by co-, because to many people, terms like co-chair look awkward without a hyphen.

4. Omitting Hyphens from Potential Homographs

Sometimes, prefixed words that would otherwise be closed up retain a hyphen to distinguish them from otherwise identical-looking words, such as re-cover as opposed to recover and re-creation as distinct from recreation.

5. Omitting Hyphens in Verb Phrases

Compound verbs, those consisting of more than one word, are hyphenated (test-drive) or closed (troubleshoot); the dictionary will let you know which form to employ. Note, however, the difference in nearly identical-looking compound verbs and open compound nouns: “I’m going to test-drive it tomorrow,” but “I’m going to take it on a test drive tomorrow.”

Also, consider the subtle difference between gerunds formed from a hyphenated compound verb that are followed, or not followed, by an object: “I was spot-checking the report when I found a serious error,” but “I’m going to do a little spot checking.”

6. Adding Hyphens to Adverbial Phrases

Adverbs are not attached to adjectives when they team up to modify a noun: “The slowly melting ice rendered the river crossing a perilous enterprise.” However, the presence of an adverb does not negate the need for a hyphen in a phrasal adjective that follows it: “Hers was an eloquently sharp-tongued response.”

7. Adding Hyphens to Prepositional Phrases

Phrases telling the reader to do something in which the first word is a verb and the second is a preposition are not hyphenated: “Sign in at the registration table.” (The phrase is hyphenated, however, when it modifies a noun: “Go to the sign-in table.”)

8. Adding or Omitting Hyphens When Referring to Ages or Physical Dimensions

When a person is identified by their age with the phrase “seven-year-old,” for example, the phrase is hyphenated whether it modifies child, boy, girl, and so on or the noun is implied. (Note that two hyphens are necessary and that, for the spelled-out form of a two-digit number, three are required: “twenty-seven-year-old.”) However, the constituent words are unattached when the phrase follows the noun: “The child is seven years old.

By the same rules, words describing an object’s physical dimensions are similarly linked: “Cut the eight-foot-long board in half.” Note, again, that all the words describing the length of the board are attached: If the final hyphen is incorrectly omitted, the reference to a board that is eight feet long is erroneously changed to describe a long board with eight feet.

9. Omitting Letter Spaces When Using Hyphens

When you see a hyphen followed by a letter space, don’t assume the space is an error. “The assignment is a 2,000- to 5,000-word essay” is correct; word has been omitted after the first number because it is implied by its presence after the second number. (This usage is called suspensive hyphenation.)

10. Confusing Hyphens and Dashes

Many publications, for the sake of simplicity or because the producers don’t know any better, use single hyphens in place of em dashes or double hyphens (the less aesthetically pleasing alternative that is frequently employed online). But they look stubby and ugly, and this crime against aesthetics is compounded when letter spaces around them are omitted, producing abominations such as “The key-and this is important-is to keep stirring constantly.”

 

From: Daily Writing Tips

What is Back-Formation

 

Back-formation is one of several methods by which new words are added to the language. An often-quoted example is the word pea. Before pea was created by back-formation, English had the singular noun pease. Here are two examples of its early use from the OED, (some spellings altered):

All this world’s pride is not worth a pease.
As like as one pease is to another.

The plural was peasen:

The leaves of beans and peasen
Cherries, gooseberries, and green peasen

Over time, as -s shoved out -en as the sign of the plural, speakers came to feel that pease was a plural; thus was born our singular pea and its plural form peas.

Back-formation is especially frequent in the creation of new verbs. Some writers use the verb “to back form,” a back-formation of back-formation; so far, this coinage hasn’t made it into either the OED or M-W.

Sometimes the coinage is intentionally jocular, as with the verb buttle from butler: “Nobody could buttle like James...” Sometimes the new verb formed from a noun fills a need and is quietly absorbed into the language, like the verb edit from editor.

At their first appearance in the language, back-formations often stir feelings of revulsion. Test your own reactions to the following sentences:

I hate it when people enthuse too much over food.

I've met him twice, but never had the chance to conversate.

To what extent...did the US intelligence community surveil the anti-apartheid movement in the United States?”

Now I would never dis my own mama just to get recognition. 

Britain's most senior police officer is liaising with US law agencies....

Have you accepted the legitimacy of the back-formations that have created the verbs enthuse, conversate, surveil, dis (also spelled diss), and liaise? Or do you get that fingernail on the blackboard feeling when you see them or hear them?

Conversely, gauge your reaction to these verbs: diagnose, donate, eavesdrop, evaluate, kidnap, manipulate, proliferate, and vaccinate.

My guess is that the second list raised nobody’s blood pressure. Yet, each of the verbs in this list is a back-formation from a pre-existing noun: diagnosis, donation, eavesdropper, evaluation, kidnapper, manipulation, proliferation, and vaccination.

Time and usage will determine whether back-formations like surveil and conversate will prevail. The determining factor will be usefulness. If the coinage is felt to fill a gap in the language, speakers will eventually embrace it. 

From: Daily Writing Tips

How to Punctuate Introductory Phrases

 

With a comma. Always. Except when you don’t. Perhaps I should annotate that: In the overwhelming majority of cases, follow an introductory phrase at the beginning of a sentence with a comma.

Adverbial Conjunctions
Eight classes of adverbial conjunctions exist, and a comma should generally follow one in every class. Each of these sentences includes an example of one such part of speech from each class:

Addition: “Finally, I reached the station.”

Comparison: “Similarly, chickens are omnivores.”

Concession: “Naturally, you’ll want to see for yourself.”

(Note, however, that however isn’t always an adverbial conjunction. In this sentence, it’s an adverb modifying important: “However important you think it is, I’m not giving him the message right now.”)

Contrast: “Nevertheless, he didn’t go into detail.”

Emphasis: “Of course, she’ll be there, too.”

(An exception can be made for this particular phrase: There’s a subtle but distinct difference between “Of course, you’ll want to do it your way” and “Of course you’ll want to do it your way.” In the first sentence, your is stressed; in the second, course, perhaps accompanied by a sneer, is emphasized, with a secondary stress on your -- and likely an exclamation point to signal emotion.)

Example: “For instance, the floor was swept but not mopped.”

Summary: “In conclusion, I recommend that we approve the measure.”

Time sequence: “At last, we saw their car approaching.”

(Some writing and editing guides suggest that short introductory phrases don’t require commas; often, such brief modifying phrases involve time: “Yesterday I saw a ghost,” for example, or “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” I recommend, though, use of commas in such cases. Otherwise, the exception to the rule is rather arbitrary; how long does a short phrase need to be before it merits a comma? And why omit commas in some cases and include others?)

Hence, Still, Then, and Thus
Another class of words may or may not be followed by a comma depending on subtle differences:

“Hence the name,” but “Hence, I was back where I had started.”

“Still the waters raged though the rain had ceased,” but “Still, I try one more time.”

“Then I tried to start the car again,” but “Then, I would have acted differently.”

“Thus we are back where we started,” but “Thus, I concede the point.”

Infinitive Phrases
“To get there, turn right at the second intersection.”

Participial Phrases
“Under the circumstances, I cannot allow it.”

From: Daily Writing Tips