32 tenses

32 tenses

Strictly speaking there are only two tenses, but the idea of tense is usually extended to include aspect and voice.

Tenses: Present, Past.Aspects: Simple, Perfect, Progressive, Perfect ProgressiveVoices: Active, Passive

Each tense can be expressed in all four aspect possibilities, so there are 8 tenses, not considering voice. Each of these 8 can be expressed in two voices, so the total number of tenses (so far) is 16.

If we add combinations with the modals (will, would, can, could, ...), the number of tenses increases considerably! Each modal can be used with the 4 aspects and 2 voices. Typically only the modalwillis included in the count (I don't know why!wouldseems equally useful, for example, in indicating time relationships.), so this adds 8 more tenses for a total of 24 tenses. If we extend the count by including the 8 tenses which can be formed withwould, we have 32 tenses in all.

The concept of time can be split into:1. The Present - What you are currently doing.I eat, I am eating1. The Past - What you did some time back.I ate, I was eating1. The Future - What you will do later.I will eat, I will be eatingIn the English language, tenses play an important role in sentence formation.The tense of a verb shows the time of an event or action.There are four types of tenses.Simple, Perfect, Continuous and Present Perfect Continuous and each of these has a present, past and future form.