Postingan
Simple Past Tense
The simple
past is used to talk about activities or situations that began and ended at a
particular time in the past. Most simple past verbs ar formed by adding –ed to a verbs. Some verbs have
irregular past format. The simple past or past simple, sometimes called the preterite,
is the basic form of the past tense in modern english It is used principally to describe events in the past,
although it also has some other uses. Regular English verbs form the simple
past in -ed; however there are a few hundred irregular verbs with different
forms. The term "simple" is used to distinguish the syntactical construction whose basic form uses the plain past tense alone, from other past
tense constructions which use auxiliaries in combination with participles, such
as the past perfect
and past progressive.
Most verbs have a single form of the simple past,
independent of the person or number of the subject (there is no addition of -s
for the third person singular as in the simple present). However, the copula verb be has two past tense forms: was for the first and third persons
singular, and were in other instances. The form were can also be
used in place of was in conditional clauses and the like; for
information on this, see English subjunctive. This is the only case in
modern English where a distinction in form is made between the indicative and subjunctive moods in the past tense.
example :
-
- He took the money and ran.
- I visited them every day for a year.
The Past Progressive Tense
The past
progressive expresses an activity that was in progress at a point of time in
the past or at the time of another action.
The past progressive or past continuous construction
combines progressive aspect with past tense, and is formed using the past tense of be (was or were)
with the present participle of the main verb. It indicates an action that was ongoing
at the past time being considered:
At three
o'clock yesterday, I was working
in the garden.
For stative verbs that do not use the progressive aspect, the simple past is used instead (At three o'clock yesterday we were in the garden).
The past progressive is often used to denote an action
that was interrupted by an event or for two actions taking place in parallel:
While I was washing the dishes, I heard a loud
noise.
While you were washing the dishes, Joe was walking the dog.
The past progressive can also be used to refer to past
action that occurred over a range of time and is viewed as an ongoing
situation:
I was working in the garden all day
yesterday.
That could also be expressed using the simple past, as
I worked..., which implies that the action is viewed as a unitary event
(although the effective meaning is not very different).