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Jackson6612 Posted 19 years ago
Linguistics Studies

How many tenses are there in English language?

0I was told that there are twelve tenses in English:02br
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01font01b001: Simple Present Tense02b02font02br
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01font01b002: Present Perfect Tense02b02font02br
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01font01b003: Present Progressive Tense02b02font02br
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01font01b004: Present Perfect Progressive Tense02b02font02br
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01font01b005: Simple Past Tense02b02font02br
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01font01b006: Past Perfect Tense02b02font02br
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01font01b007: Past Progressive Tense02b02font02br
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01font01b008: Past Perfect Progressive Tense02b02font02br
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01font01b009: Simple Future Tense02b02font02br
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01font01b0010: Future Perfect Tense02b02font02br
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01font01b0011: Future Progressive Tense02b02font02br
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01font01b0012: Future Perfect Progressive Tense02b02font02br
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00But I read somewhere that total number of tenses in English is six or seven. 01b01font00Is this true?02font02b0-
  

Top answer

0 I think there are only six tenses: present, preterite, future, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect. 0-

— Bldudas

  • 0 I think there are only six tenses: present, preterite, future, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect.
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88 Answers
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0 I think there are only six tenses: present, preterite, future, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect. 0-
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0 There are TWO tenses in English language; present and past. There is no future tense. Let me clarify it.02br
00What is tense? Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines tense as: Any of the forms of a verb that may be used to show the time of the action or state expressed by the verb. 02br
00Now what is time? Time is a universal concept with three divisions: present,
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0Strictly speaking there are only two tenses, but the idea of tense is usually extended to include aspect and voice.02br
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00 Tenses: Present, Past.02br
00 Aspects: Simple, Perfect, Progressive, Perfect Progressive02br
00 Voices: Active, Passive02br
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00 Each tense can be expressed in all four aspect possibilities, so there
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0 01blockquote
02br
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11font10Each modal can be used with the 11i11b104 aspects and 2 voices12b12i10. Typically only the modal 11i10will12i10 is included in the count (I don't know why! 11i10would12i10 seems equally useful, for example, in indicati
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0There are two.0-
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0 01blockquote
02br
12br
11font10Each modal can be used with the 11i11b104 aspects and 2 voices12b12i10. Typically only the modal 11i10will12i10 is included in the count (I don't know why! 11i10would12i10 seems equally useful, for example, in indicati
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0 01blockquote
00Please explain the above paragraph. Thank you.12blockquote
10 01i02br
00 will02i00 used with the 4 aspect combinations in active voice:02br
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01i00will take, will be taking, will have taken, will have been taking.02i02br
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00 The same 4 in passive vo
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0CalifJim, I know you are absolutely correct but don't you feel it somewhat weird that there are only two tenses, Present and Past, in English language? Naturally when I think about the tenses in any language, I come to the conclusion that there should be at least three tenses Present, Past, and Future.0-
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0The divisions of time that you are speaking of are just that: (mathematical) divisions of time. There is the present moment - which only lasts an instant -- and is constantly changing. Then there is everything 01u00before02u00 the present moment and everything 01u00after02u00 the present moment. In this view, almost everything that happens is ei
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There are 16 tenses in english. I'll list them ...

1. Present Simple - I play
2. Present Continuous - I am playing
3. Present Perfect - I have played
4. Present Perfect Continuous - I have been playing
5. Past Simple - I played
6. Past Continuous - I was playing
7. Past Perfect - I had played
8. Past Perfect Continuous - I had been playing
9. Future Simple
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