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Sabtu, 18 Februari 2012

TENSES AND CONJUGATION


Tenses and Conjugation

Using correct verb forms is crucial to communicating coherently. Understanding how to apply different tenses and properly conjugate verbs will give you the tools with which to craft clear, effective sentences.

Conjugations
A conjugation is a list of verb forms. It catalogues the person, number, tense, voice, and mood of a verb. Knowing how to conjugate verbs correctly will help you match verbs with their subjects, and give you a firmer grasp on how verbs function in different sentences. Here is a sample conjugation table:

Present Tense, Active Voice, Indicative Mood: Jump

Person
Singular
Plural
1st Person
I jump
we jump
2nd Person
you jump
you jump
3rd Person
he/she/it jumps
they jump

Person: Person is divided into three categories (first, second, and third person), and tells the reader whether the subject is speaking, is spoken to, or is spoken about. Each person is expressed using different subjects: first person uses I or we; second person uses you; and third person uses he/she/it or they. Keep in mind that these words are not the only indicators of person; for example in the sentence “Shakespeare uses images of the divine in his sonnets to represent his own delusions of grandeur”, the verb uses is in the third person because Shakespeare could be replaced by he, an indicator of the third person.
                                               
Number: Number refers to whether the verb is singular or plural.

Tense: Tense tells the reader when the action of a verb takes place. English has six tenses: Present, Past, Future (the Simple Tenses), and Present Perfect, Past Perfect, and Future Perfect (the Perfect Tenses). Each of these tenses has another form, called the Progressive. Tenses will be further discussed below.

Voice: The voice of a verb shows whether the subject of the verb is performing an action or is being acted upon. In the active voice, the subject of the verb performs an action; in the passive voice, the subject of the verb is being acted upon. For example:
            Active Voice:   Socrates asserts that humans inherently know everything.
            Passive Voice: The assertion that humans inherently know everything is made by Socrates.
Note that the word by is not part of the verb; however, by often accompanies verbs in the passive voice.

Mood: The mood of a verb denotes the attitude of the speaker. English verbs can take one of three moods: indicative, imperative, or subjunctive.
            Indicative: The indicative mood is used to express questions and statements.
                        Example: Approximately 30,000 people speak Irish as their native language.
            Imperative: The imperative mood is used to give commands or directions.
                        Example: Eat your beets!
Subjunctive: The subjunctive mood is used to express a wish, a request, a requirement, or a condition that is contrary to fact. Often, subjunctives are accompanied by the helping verbs would, could, or should.
Example: I would ride the bus to school if I lived on the bus line.

Tenses
 
Tenses tell when the action of the verb takes place. Using tenses correctly and consistently improves the readability of your writing. English has six tenses, each of which has a Progressive form. The Simple and Perfect tenses address action as a whole; these actions have a foreseeable beginning and end. The Progressive forms of these tenses convey motion, continuous action, or an action that is currently in progress. Use a form of the verb to be, such as am, were, been, etc., and add -ing to the main verb to construct the Progressive, e.g. she cried (Past tense) becomes she was crying (Past Progressive). Definitions and conjugations of all six tenses are on the reverse of this handout.

Present Tense
Use the Present tense to show actions that happen in the present or are habitual.
Present (Tense), Active (Voice), Indicative (Mood): Eat
Person
Singular
Plural
     
Present: The liquid nitrogen boils over.
Present Progressive: The liquid nitrogen is boiling over.
1st Person
I eat
we eat
2nd Person
you eat
you eat
3rd Person
he/she/it eats
they eat

Past Tense
Use the Past tense to show actions that happened before the present moment.

Past, Active, Indicative: Eat
Person
Singular
Plural
                         
Past: Castaway Carl walked the plank.
Past Progressive: Castaway Carl was walking the plank.
1st Person
I ate
we ate
2nd Person
you ate
you ate
3rd Person
he/she/it ate
they ate

Future Tense
Use the Future tense to show actions that will happen in the future.

Future, Active, Indicative: Eat
Person
Singular
Plural
  
Future: I will explore animism in John Keats' Ode on a
Grecian Urn.
Future Progressive: I will be exploring animism in John Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn. 
1st Person
I will eat
we will eat
2nd Person
you will eat
you will eat
3rd Person
he/she/it will eat
they will eat

Present Perfect Tense
Use the Present Perfect tense to show that the action of the verb has been completed in the past but is linked to the present.

Present Perfect, Active, Indicative: Eat
Person
Singular
Plural

Present Perfect: She has called the doctor.
Present Perfect Progressive: She has been calling the doctor.
1st Person
I have eaten
we have eaten
2nd Person
you have eaten
you have eaten
3rd Person
he/she/it has eaten
they have eaten

Past Perfect
Use the Past Perfect tense to show an action that was completed prior to another action that took place in the past.

Past Perfect, Active, Indicative: Eat
Person
Singular
Plural

Past Perfect: President Lincoln had attended the theatre regularly before his assassination.
Past Perfect Progressive: President Lincoln had been attending the theatre regularly before his assassination.
1st Person
I had eaten
we had eaten
2nd Person
you had eaten
you had eaten
3rd Person
he/she/it had eaten
they had eaten

Future Perfect
Use the Future Perfect tense to show an action that will be completed prior to another action that will take place in the future.

Future Perfect, Active, Indicative: Eat
Person
Singular
Plural

Future Perfect: We will have designed the poster in three days.
Future Perfect Progressive: We will have been designing the poster for three days.
1st Person
I will have eaten
we will have eaten
2nd Person
you will have eaten
you will have eaten
3rd Person
he/she/it will have eaten
they will have eaten





Fill in the blanks with the appropriate form of the verb.

Present, Active, Indicative: Grow
Person
Singular
Plural
     

1st Person
I _______
we _______
2nd Person
you _______
you_______
3rd Person
he/she/it _______
they _______

Past, Active, Indicative: Grow
Person
Singular
Plural
     

1st Person
I _______
we _______
2nd Person
you _______
you_______
3rd Person
he/she/it _______
they _______

Present Perfect, Active, Indicative: Grow
Person
Singular
Plural
     

1st Person
I _______
we _______
2nd Person
you _______
you_______
3rd Person
he/she/it _______
they _______

Future, Active, Indicative: Grow
Person
Singular
Plural
     

1st Person
I _______
we _______
2nd Person
you _______
you_______
3rd Person
he/she/it _______
they _______

Past Perfect, Active, Indicative: Grow
Person
Singular
Plural
     

1st Person
I _______
we _______
2nd Person
you _______
you_______
3rd Person
he/she/it _______
they _______

Future Perfect, Active, Indicative: Grow
Person
Singular
Plural
     

1st Person
I _______
we _______
2nd Person
you _______
you_______
3rd Person
he/she/it _______
they _______







Here is a sample paragraph from a student self-evaluation. Some of the verb tenses are correct; some are incorrect. Find the incorrect verbs and fix their tenses. Remember to consider the tenses of other verbs in the sentence; these may give you clues about the correct tense.

            This is the final quarter of my junior year at Evergreen. I enter spring quarter with a deep desire to create. After spending the first two quarters of the year analyzing other people’s art, I was more than ready to start making my own. I wanted the opportunity to write creatively and to explore the immediate world around me, not just dusty world of past events. In Take A Look, I was afford the opportunity to do this and much more. From the first day of class, I challenge to reawaken my senses, experience the world with an objective and open mind, and, above all, to use these as tools in creating effective art. We will require to write profusely, writing response papers for every day of class, as well as larger synthesis and reflection papers. We had drawing workshops every week, in which we learned useful techniques on how to create convincing art. Perhaps the most influential element of the class, however, is the weekly field site observation, during which we utilized all of our new powers of perception.

For more practice, pick a paragraph from a book, newspaper, or magazine you are reading. Choose a tense and change all verbs in that paragraph to the tense you select.

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