TENSES INTRODUCTION

Today we shall discus tenses and this, we know it is under the verb series. In this case let's look at the following examples to determine what we mean by tenses.

1. She writes this letter to please you.

2. I wrote the letter in his very presence.

3. I shall write another letter tomorrow.

In sentence 1, the Verb write refers to present time.

In sentence 2, the Verb wrote refers to past time.

In sentence 3, the Verb shall write refers to future time.

Thus a Verb may refer

(1) to present time, 

(2) to past time, or 

(3) to future time.

. A Verb that refers to present time is said to be present tense. Example:

I sleep; she goes to school every day.

A verb that refers to the past or previous time is said to be past tense. Example:

I was afraid of the beast when i saw it.

A verb that refers to the future time is said to be future tense. Example:

I shall visit the doctor tomorrow. Hope you get it? Now let's move on!

The Tense of a Verb shows the time of an action or event.

Note: Sometimes a past tense may refer to present time, and a present tense may express future time, as:

I wish I knew the answer. (= I'm sorry I don't know the answer. Past tense - Present time)

Let's wait till he comes. (Present tense - future tense)

We may now define Tense as that form of a Verb which shows the time and the state of an action or event.

A verb agrees with its subject in number and person. Study the verb forms of various tenses:

Simple Present Tense 

I give, You give, He gives, We give, They give

Present Continuous Tense

• I am giving, You are giving, He is giving, We are giving, They are giving.

Present Perfect Tense 

I have given, You have given, He has given, We have given, They have given

Simple Past Tense 

I gave,  You gave, He gave, We gave, They gave.

Past Perfect Tense

• I had given• You had given• He had given• We had given• They had given

Simple Future Tense

I shall/will give,  You will give, He will give, We shall/will give, They will give.

Future Perfect Tense

I shall/will have given,  You will have given, He will have given, We shall/will have given

They will have given.

Present Perfect Continuous Tense

• I have been giving. You have been giving• He has been giving

• We have been giving • They have been giving

Past Continuous Tense

I was giving, You were giving, He was giving We were giving, They were giving.

Past Perfect Continuous Tense

I had been giving, You had been giving , He had been giving ,We had been giving, They had been giving

Future Continuous Tense 

• I shall/will be giving  • You will be giving  • He will be giving  • We shall/will be giving  • They will be giving

Future Perfect Continuous Tense

I shall/will have been giving ,You will have been giving  He will have been giving 

He shall/will have been giving  They will have been giving

Exercise in Grammar

Point out the Verbs in the following sentences and name their tenses:- 

1. The river flows under the

 bridge.

2. I shall answer the letter to-night.

3. 1 knew he was there, for I had seen him come.

4. It has been raining all night.

5. I hear he has passed all right. 

6. I had finished when he came. 

7. He takes but little pride in his work. 

8. I have been living here for months. 

9. Be good, sweet maid. 

10. By this time to-morrow I shall have reached my home. 

11. It is time we left. 

12. He told me that he had finished 

13. God forgive you !

14. He is waiting for you in the compound.

15. Piper, pipe that song again.

16. I am hoping to get a holiday soon.

17. Perhaps it were better to obey him.

18. Do noble deeds, not dream them all the day.

19. I shall have plenty of time tomorrow.

20. Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.

21. The king had never before led his troops in battle.

22. If he was guilty, his punishment was too light.

23. We have heard a strange story.

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICE

In most sentences, there is always the doer likewise the receiver.  I.e.  The subject and the object. Here we shall discuss another segment of verb, let’s move on.

Examples: Rama slaps Ramadan. (Active voice)

Ramadan is slapped by Rama (passive voice)

In the first example we will observe that Rama is the subject while Ramadan is the receiver of the action (object). But in the second example Ramadan comes first in expense of the object while the doer is not shown or placed in the receiver's post.

Definition:  Active voice/verb shows the doer of the action.

Passive voice/verb: The subject is not shown or it is the receiver of the action. Also the person denoted by the subject is the passive.

Another example: The mason is building the wall (active)

The wall is being built by the mason (passive).

ACTIVE and PASSIVE CHAT

Tense (or Modal + base) -- Active Voice -- Passive Voice

Simple present -- take, takes -- am taken, is taken, are taken.

Present continuous -- am taking, is taking, are taking -- am being taken, is being taken,  are being taken

Present perfect -- has taken, have taken -- has been taken, have been taken

Simple past -- took -- was taken, were taken

Past continuous -- was taking, were taking -- was being taken, were being taken

Past perfect -- had taken -- had been taken

Simple future -- will take, shall take -- will be taken, shall be taken

Can / may / must, etc. + base -- can take, must take -- can be taken must be taken

 Students must know when to use the Active Voice and when to use the Passive : the  ability to change the Active Voice into the Passive and vice versa is not sufficient.

When verbs that take both a direct and an indirect object in the Active Voice are changed to the Passive, either object may become the subject of the Passive verb, while the other is retained.

Active -- Passive

The guard refused him admittance. -- Admittance was refused to him by the ground. He  was refused admittance by the guard.

Mr. Krishnaji teaches us grammar. -- Grammar is taught to us by Mr. Krishnaji., We are taught grammar by Mr. Krishnaji.

The manager will give you a ticket. -- A ticket will be given to you by the manager. You will be given a ticket by the manager.

Who taught you French? -- By whom was French taught to you? Who were you taught  French by? By whom were you taught French?

He handed her a chair. -- A chair was handed to her. She was handed a chair.

Exercise (Do these)

Change the following sentences so that the Verbs will be in the Passive Voice:-

1. We saw you and him.

2. They asked me my name.

3. We refused them admission.

4. I bought the baby a doll.

 5. They found him guilty of murder. 

6. A thunderstorm often turns milk sour.

7. You cannot pump the ocean dry.

8. They saw the storm approaching.

9. He keeps me waiting. 

10. They painted the house red.

11. He told me to leave the room. 

12. He promised me a present. 

13. I shall order the carriage. 

14. The boy is climbing the cliff. 

15. One may accomplish many things by a little effort. 

16. I am watching you very carefully.

Exercise (Do these).

Rewrite the following sentences so that the Verbs will be in the Active Voice:-

1. He was praised by his father.

2. The first railway was built by George Stephenson.

3. The horse was frightened by the noise.

4. Not a word was spoken by Latif.

5. The teacher was pleased with the boy's work.

6. He was taken to the hospital by his friends.

7. The town was destroyed by an earthquake.

8. The road was lined with people.

9. The President was welcomed by the people.

10. Shakuntala was written by Kalidas.

The verb

In this article,  we shall discuss what a verb is and how is it relating with a sentence.

A verb in its simple definition tells or asserts something about a person or a thing.

The common definition which is known to us" A verb is

an action" is just part of the definition, not the whole or complete definition.

A verb, as its name implies comes from a Latin word (verbum) and its definition goes beyond an action word. A verb may tells us:

1. What a person or thing does (Action)

E.g Adam laughs.

2. What is done to a person or thing (event)

E.g Adam is scolded.

3.  What a person or thing is (State)

E.g Adam is dead.

These show that a verb consist of more than one word.

A verb is used transitively or intransitively rather than it is transitive or intransitive  since it is a key word in a sentence. More so we have discussed the issues relating to transitive as a usage of verb that requires an object and intransitive as a usage that may not require an object.

Here we shall buttress more on the usages of a verb in a sentence.

INTRANSITIVE VERBS USED AS TRANSITIVE

Some verbs in the position of intransitive can be used transitively.

1. When intransitive verb is used as causative sense.

Examples: The horse walks (intransitive)

                  He walks the horse (transitive)

B. The kite flies (intransitive) here you can't say flies what.

  The boy flies their kite (transitive) here you will say 'flies what'?

2. By adding preposition.

Examples: I laughed ( intransitive)

B. All his friends laughed at (what/who?) Him. (Transitive)

C. He laughed a hearty laugh (this is called cognate object) whereby the verb word will be repeated in the objective case.

TRANSITIVES USED AS INTRANSITIVES

Examples: he broke the glass (transitive) (broke what?)

B. The glass broke (intransitive) here you can't say broke what.

VERB OF INCOMPLETE PREDICATION

These are verbs that don't have a complete predicate except something/a word is added to them.

Examples: the baby seems( incomplete predicate) but if i say" the baby seems happy' that makes it complete. The word "happy" completed the incomplete predicate,  therefore it is called complement. Which complement should it be? It is the complement of the verb SEEMS.

N. B: complement can be subjective or objective.

Subjective complement: E.g Tabby is a cat or The Earth is round (cat and round are both subjective)

Objective complement: The jury found him guilty.

Another example of incomplete predicate is 'The jury found him..... (Guilty) so we say,  the jury found him guilty.

DIRECT AND INDIRECT OBJECT

Direct object denote a thing. It shows the instant receiver of the action.

Example: she slapped Busayo.

Indirect object: this denote the person to whom something is given. Examples: His father gave him (indirect) a watch.

Lastly,  verb can be used reflexively also. Example :the man killed himself (himself,  here is the objective case) likewise, when you say: I shut the door myself. Hope you get that?

Our next topic will be on active and passive voice with mood in verb.

Drop your questions,  clarification, comments and the likes. Thanks for reading.

SENTENCE FORMATION 2 (analyses)

In our previous topic,  we discuss the types of sentence and how they are used in English. Here,  we will like to continue with this sentence formation by analysing each words that conjunct as a sentence.

We all know that part of a sentence is a clause and this means,  for every word in it has its basis and origin. When i say origin here,  i mean the parts of speech each word belongs to. Now i will give you an example to express what i mean.

Examples:
Saburi has gone to visit his mother in the city.
In accordance to the English rules,  we have eight parts of speech which we are going to treat each better soonest! But let's list out few of those eight. We have noun,  pronoun,  verb.......
Now back to the example given above 'Saburi has gone to visit his mother in the city. Here,  we have the:

Subject: which denotes the actor(s) or the doer of the action. In this case,  who is the actor in the above sentence? We will all agree that ot's Saburi. Hope you understand? Now let's move on.

Predicate:which denotes what the actor(s) or the doer did in the sentence. So what did Saburi did in the sentence? Has gone to visit his mother in the city. Hope you get that? The work of the predicate starts from where the actor stops. It is of no concern to the predicate if there is any word that comes before the Subject. For instance,  The queen of England has arrived. 'The queen of England' is a subject and you know it's in a possessive case likewise an article. Since England is attached to its Queen and it can't make a full sense without it,  then it cannot be seperated from it. In that case the predicate starts from the initial verb of the sentence. And the initial verb of the sentence 'The Queen of England has arrived ' is ? Yeah HAS.

PREDICATE.
As predicate is concerned,  it denote what the actor does in the sentence. It also encompasses all words that come after the subject. It comprises:

Transitive : a link/verb that connects a subject to an object,  i.e a verb of transitive requires object (the receiver of the action). To know the receiver of the action; the word 'what' or 'who' needs to be attached to the verb of the subject.

 Example:
Rama bought, (here we can say bought what?) Then to complete it; you can say,  Rama bought a pen. So the pen here is an object which means the verb 'bought' determines the existence of the object. Hope you understand? Also in the example:

Muffu slapt (who)?. Muffu slapt sagbene.
Intransitive: Once a verb is used intransitively,  it dosen't require an object except in some cases which will later discus. To determine these verbs,  it won't require the attachment of 'what' or 'who'. Examples
The baby cries. Can we add WHAT to the cries? Ofcourse No!

They all sat. (Likewise in this example )
Provide more examples amidst your daily activities and people around you.
Leave your comments, questions and clarifications.

SENTENCE FORMATION 1

In our previous discussions,  we elaborated grammatical phrase,  clause and their functions. Now we shall discus the formation of sentence and how it can be used.
We can as well call this syntax because it deals with the combination of words to form sentences. So sit back and enjoy the educating movie.

Sentence in its simple definition is a group of words that makes a complete sense. Or sentence is the combination of clauses.  Under this sentence,  we have types that are related to it.
Some of the types are:

Simple sentence
A simple sentence has only one subject and one predicate,  which mean; a simple sentence is also known as a clause based on the given meaning above.
Examples:
1. His courage won him honour.
2. The way was brightened by the reflection of the moon light.
3. The work is tedious for us to complete.

Compound sentence.
Compound sentence consist of two or more main or principal clause.

Examples:
1. The moon was brightened and we could see our way.
2. She went to bala's shop but she couldn't meet her.
In the above two sentences,  in each of them, consist of two clauses joined by a conjunction tools which if removed; the clauses can stand on their own without depending on the other. So here we can say the clauses are independent clauses. I hope you get it?

Likewise when you say ' night came on and rain fell heavily and we all got very well. I hope you know this sentence contains 3 independent clause? Now let's move on.
Complex sentence.

A complex sentence consist of one main clause and one or more subordinate clauses.

Examples:
1. They rested when evening comes. (They rested - main clause,  when evening comes - subordinate clause). In most cases the subordinate clauses can't stand on their own that is why they had to depend on the main clause so we can say they are dependent clauses.

N. B if main clauses are more than the subordinate clauses in an example,  it is a compound sentence but if it's vice versal then we can say it's complex sentence.
Please leave your comments or any question you may desire to ask.