Verb Tense, Aspect, Mood Overview
Let's start by first reviewing the three features of verbs to know their definition and examples. Next, we will learn about two specific tenses in more detail to understand how to form and use them correctly to build sentences.
Because verbs are the main elements of English sentences, we focus on verbs for two main reasons:
-
by knowing verb features, you'll have an easier time using them correctly in your writing;
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by understanding how verbs are used, you'll also have an easier time reading sentences correctly.
Verbs are very important to expressing a sentence's meaning, so it is important to use them correctly. In English, every sentence needs at least one verb. As you remember from ESL001, verbs describe an action or a state. Each verb in a sentence is paired with its subject which can be a noun or pronoun.
But tense, aspect, and mood influence how we use verbs to express meaning in sentences. Tense, aspect, and mood can be combined in a variety of ways to express our thoughts. Therefore, when you know these verb features, it's easier to correctly share and understand ideas in English. These important verb features are:
|
Verb Feature |
What is it? |
Examples |
Sentence Examples |
|
1. Tense |
Any form of a verb that shows when an action or state happens or exists. |
• past • present • future |
• She walked. • She walks. • She will walk. |
|
2. Aspect |
Verbal aspect shows the timing of the verb or whether the action happens in a single block of time, continuously, or repetitively. *All verbs have both tense and aspect. |
• simple • continuous (progressive) • perfect • perfect continuous (progressive) |
• She walks. (present simple) • She is walking. (present continuous) • She has walked. (present perfect) • She has been walking. (present perfect continuous) |
|
3. Mood |
This shows the speaker's or writer's attitude about their ideas. |
• indicative (factual statements) • imperative (commands, prohibitions, requests) • subjunctive (imaginary situations, wishes) |
• She walks. (any tense/aspect combination) • Let's walk! Don't run! • She could walk faster. |
Because there are three verb tenses and four verb aspects, there are twelve possible combinations of tense and aspect in English. As you remember from ESL001, helping, or auxiliary, verbs are used with main or lexical verbs to indicate different tense, aspect, and mood of verbs.
|
Simple |
Continuous |
Perfect |
Perfect Continuous |
|
|
Past |
I studied yesterday. |
I was studying when the phone rang. |
I had studied Business models before enrolling in the Commerce program at SMU. |
I had been studying Business models for 2 hours when you arrived. |
|
Present |
Eric reviews his lecture notes daily. |
Eric is reviewing his lecture notes in the Atrium. |
Eric has reviewed his lecture notes. |
Eric has been reviewing his lecture notes for 3 days. |
|
Future |
Sarah will be an engineer. |
Sarah will be working as an engineer next summer. |
Sarah will have worked as an engineer for 4 years. |
Sarah will have been working for 4 years by 2019. |
Now that we know what all three verb features are, let's look at two of the most common tenses and aspects in more detail to see how they are different from each other and how they are used in sentences.
Content adapted from:
Writing Centre and Academic Communication, Saint Mary's University, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58d01deed482e982a9e679b5/t/60fae89f281b20582e386424/1627056287958/Verb+Tenses.pdf
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.
The University of Western Australia, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eH1yib9Gms
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Boundless, https://quillbot.com/courses/introduction-to-college-level-writing/chapter/verbs/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.