Transcript of Lesson 2 – Introduction to the English Verb System

Introduction to the English verb system.

Today’s lesson was meant to be discussing the difference between the perfect progressive as in ‘has been doing’ and the perfect passive as in ‘has been done’.

However, I decided it’s going to be much more helpful to teach you the concepts underlying the English verb system than just comparing these two constructions.

Once you understand the underlying concepts, you’ll be able to understand and use even the most complicated verb tenses in English.

English is relatively unique within the Indo-European language family as unlike languages like Spanish and French, it’s mostly periphrastic.

That’s a big word, but effectively, ‘periphrasis’ is where multiple words are used in a phrase in order to express a grammatical relationship.

So, where languages like Spanish or French use a single word with an inflexion, English uses multiple words.

This is why you’ll see phrases like: “I will have been waiting here for five minutes by the time you arrive”.

“Will have been waiting”, four different words used to express effectively the verb ‘waiting’ in a more complicated tense.

So in English, instead of having a single verb with an inflexion added to that verb to show tense, you have a series of words, a phrase, that is used to do the job.

All English verb tenses are periphrastic except the simple present and the simple past tenses, which only use a single word with an inflexion to show the present, for example, ‘he studies’, or the past, for example, ‘he studied’.

We have a suite of other helping words that are used in English in order to describe a verb in terms of when, how, and duration.

There are four main categories that the English verb system can be broken up into:

Tense – There are two tenses: present and past.

Aspect – There are four aspects: simple, progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive.

Mood – There are three moods: indicative, subjunctive and imperative.

And voice – There are two voices: active and passive voice.

So, Let’s quickly go through each of these categories.

Number one: Tense.

‘Tense’ is the expression of the location in time of an action or state.

Technically speaking, English only has two tenses: the past simple and the present simple.

Despite popular belief, it doesn’t have a future tense.

So, for example:

He goes to the shops each day. – Simple present tense.

‘He went to the shops yesterday. – The simple past tense.

However, English gets around this and creates a future tense by using modal verbs like ‘will’ and ‘shall’ and the phrasal structure ‘be going to + a verb’.

For example:

He will go to the shops later.

He shall go to the shops later.

He is going to go to the shops later.

Ultimately, what you want to call a tense here doesn’t matter.

The basic point is that English only uses inflected verbs in the present simple tense and the present past tense, and all other tenses are periphrastic, meaning they’ll include multiple words like:

I had already eaten dinner.

She will have been travelling.

They are going to try later.

Now, let’s go through aspect.

‘Aspect’ is the expression of how an action or state extends over time.

It expresses ongoing actions or states with or without specific end points, and English has four aspects.

‘The simple aspect’ – This is the default aspect of the simple present and the simple past tenses, and it expresses single actions, habits and routines.

For example:

I like to surf.

So, this is surfing is a habit of mine.

We then have ‘the progressive aspect’ – And this expresses incomplete or ongoing actions or states at a specific time.

For example:

I am surfing.

This indicates I started surfing in the past recently and I am now currently still surfing.

‘The perfect aspect’ – This expresses the consequences resulting from an action or state that happened in the past and how it connects to a period that we’re talking about in the present.

So, it links to points in time, an earlier point with a later point.

For example:

I have surfed today.

This focuses on the end result of surfing as opposed to the process of surfing. Right?

The action of surfing has been done today.

I have surfed today.

Lastly, we have ‘the perfect progressive aspect’ – This is a combination of the perfect and the progressive aspects.

It expresses incomplete or ongoing actions or states that started in the past and continue to a specific point in time in the present, right? Or at least the present that you’re speaking about.

For example:

I have been surfing.

This shows that I started surfing in the past and continued to surf until a specific point in time at which I’m either still surfing or I have just stopped surfing.

Now, let’s talk about ‘mood’.

‘Mood’ is the expression of modality of an action, state, or event.

So, ‘Modality’ meaning the way that something exists.

Modality is used to express possibility, necessity, and contingency.

It can be expressed using modal verbs as well as grammatical mood in English, and there are three modes in English.

‘The indicative’ – This allows speakers to express things like assertions, denials, and questions of fact or strong probability.

And most English sentences are in the indicative mood.

For example, the assertion ‘I cooked dinner’ and the question, ‘Did you cook dinner?’.

These are both sentences in the indicative mood.

We then have ‘the subjunctive mood’ – This expresses commands, requests, suggestions, wishes, hypotheses, purposes, doubts, and suppositions that are contrary to fact at the time they are said. Right?

So, It’s a way effectively of showing uncertainty.

It’s used in very formal English and isn’t very common, so don’t stress if you find it a little confusing.

We have ‘the present subjunctive’, which is identical to the base form of English verbs.

So for example, in the phrase “God help us!”.

You’re saying this wishing for God to help you as opposed to saying “God helps us.”, which appears to be a statement of truth, like God is helping us right now.

If you say “God help us!”, it’s that you desire that thing.

And we also have ‘the past subjunctive’, which is identical to the plural simple past indicative.

So, an example would be: ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t do that.’ Right?

The idea here being ‘I am not you, but hypothetically, if I were you, whatever you are doing currently is something I would not do.’.

Lastly, we have ‘the imperative’ and this allows speakers to make direct commands, express requests, and grant or deny permission.

And the form of the imperative mood is identical to the base form of any English verb.

So, effectively, it is just the verb without ‘to’ at the front.

So a command, for example might be: ‘Go!’, ‘Leave!’, ‘Stay’, ‘Sit down!’, ‘Stop talking!’.

Lastly, let’s go through ‘voice’.

So, ‘voice’ is the expression of the relationships between the participants, the subject and object in a phrase, in a narrated event and the event itself.

English has two voices.

‘The active voice’ – Where the subject performs the action of or acts upon the verb and the direct object receives the action of the verb.

For example:

I ate the food.

The subject here is ‘I’ performing the action of ‘eating’, and ‘the food’ is the direct object, which receives the action of being eaten.

And then we have ‘the passive voice’ – This is where the subject, instead of doing the verb, receives the action of a transitive verb.

And it receives this verb from the object.

So, effectively, the object and the subject just switch positions.

The object is now doing the verb to the subject.

So, if we rearrange that previous sentence, you would see:

The food was eaten by me.

The subject here is ‘me’ and I’m receiving the action of the verb ‘was eaten by’ from the object, ‘the food’.

So, let’s summarise this.

English only has to true verb tenses where inflexions are added to the words, the verbs, the simple present tense and the simple past tense.

English has a unique verb tense system because it’s periphrastic, meaning it uses multiple words like ‘will’, ‘are’, ‘be’, ‘going’, and past participles like ‘went’, ‘did’, etc. to form phrases that then express different tenses instead of just adding inflexions onto single words.

The English verb system has four main components:

‘Tense’, which is used to express the location in time of an action event or state: the past, the present or the future.

‘Aspect’, which is used to express the temporal nature of an action event or state. So, was it repeated, ongoing, did it start in the past but continued to the present?

We have ‘mood’, which is used to express the way an action or state exists. So assertions, denials, doubts, commands.

And then we have ‘voice’, which is used to express the relationship between the participants, the subject and the object, in an action event or state. So, the subject does the action to the object or the subject receives the action from the object.

Lastly here, guys, don’t panic if you can’t remember everything, we just went over Okay?

To be honest, I didn’t know most of these linguistic terms and what they meant prior to putting this lesson together.

The goal of this lesson is to get you thinking about how the English verb system works by using these four main components: tense, aspect, mood, and voice.

We’ll break down each of these components more deeply in the following lessons.

If you’ve got any questions or you want to add anything, put them in the comments below and I’ll chat to you there.