Functional English

Week 3

Time, Tense and Aspect

States _________________________
Events

Set of repeated events (habits)

 Napoleon was a Corsican.

Columbus discovered America.
Arthur Ash played tennis brilliantly.

Specifying habit or state more precisely

by adding expressions of frequency or
duration:
-He played the violin every day from the age
of five.
-Queen Victoria reigned for sixty four years.

Present time

Present state (the Simple Present Tense)

-Im hungry.

Present event (the Simple Present Tense)

-I declare the meeting closed.

Present habit (the Simple Present Tense)

- It rains a lot in this part of the world.

Temporary present (the Present Progressive)

- They are living in a rented house.

Temporary habit (the Present Progressive)

- Im playing golf regularly these days.

Past time
Past happening related to past time.
-He was in prison for ten years.

In contrast, the perfect aspect is used for a

past happening which is in relation to a
later event or time. Thus the present
perfect means past happening related to
present time.
-He has been in prison for ten years.

The Past tense refers to

A definite time in the past
-He came to England in 1955.

A gap between the time referred to and

the present moment
-His sister suffered from asthma all her life.
-His sister has suffered from asthma all her life.

The Present Perfect

Four related uses may be noted:
Past event with results in the present time.
-All police leave has been cancelled.

Indefinite event in a period leading up to

the present time.
-Have you ever been to Florence?

Habit in a period leading up to the present

time.
-She has attended lectures regularly this
semester.

State leading up to the present time.

The Perfect Progressive

The present perfect progressive has the
same sort of meaning as the simple
present perfect, except that the period
leading up to the present typically has the
limited duration:
-Ive been studying for the exams.
-What have you been doing, sleeping all day?

The Past Perfect

Past in the past.
-The house had been empty for several months
when we bought it.
-When the guests had departed, John cleared the
table.

Perfect aspect with infinitives and

participles
Infinitives and participles have no tense
and hence cannot express the difference
between the past tense and the perfect
aspect. Instead the perfect expresses
general past meaning:
-He seems to have missed the point of your
joke.
-More than 1, 000 people are said to have been
arrested.

State or Habit in the past

Expressed by used to and would
-My uncle used to keep horses.
-I used to know her well when I was a student.

Would may also express a past habit with the

particular sense of characteristic, predictable
behavior.
-He would go to office late (every day).

The simple present tense with past

meaning
The historic present: used in part-time
narrative to describe events vividly as if
they are really happening now:
-Then in comes the hero and fights all the bad
guys.

With verbs of communication, (hear,

inform etc.):
-The doctor says he thinks I had a mild
concussion.

The progressive aspect

Refers to activity in progress, and
suggests
1. That the activity is temporary (i.e. of limited
duration)
2. That it does not have to be complete

Verbs which do or dont take the

progressive
The verbs which most typically take the
progressive are verbs denoting

-Activities (walk, read, drink, write, work etc.)

-Processes (change, grow, widen, improve
etc.)
-Momentary events (knock, jump, kick etc.)

 State verbs often cannot be used with the

progressive at all, because the notion of
something in progress cannot be easily
applied to them:
Verbs of perceiving: e.g., feel, hear, see,
smell, taste
-I can see someone through the window, but
I cant hear what theyre saying.
(Note that to express continuing perception, we
often use these verbs with can or could)

Verbs referring to a state of mind or

feeling
Believe, adore, desire, detest, dislike,
doubt, forget, hate, hope, imagine, know,
like, love, mean, prefer, remember,
suppose, understand, want, wish etc.

Verbs referring to a relationship or a

state of being
Be, belong to, concern, consist of, contain,
cost, depend on, deserve, equal, fit, have,
involve, matter, owe, own, possess,
remain, require, resemble etc.

Exceptions where the progressive is

used
When the state verb is changed into an
activity verb (referring to an active form
of behavior).
Thus, in place of see and hear, we have
the equivalent activity verbs look (at) and
listen (to).
-Why are you looking at me like that?
-She was listening to the news when I phoned.

 For smell, feel, and taste, there is no

special activity verb, so these verbs have
the role of expressing activity as well as
the state meaning:
-She was feeling in her pocket for a
handkerchief. (activity)
-The water felt wonderful on her skin. (state)

 Similarly, think, imagine, hope, expect,

etc. are sometimes used as mental
activity verbs:
-Im thinking about what you are saying.
-Hes hoping to finish his training before the end
of the year.

Future Time
Five main ways of expressing future
time:
a) Will or Shall
b) Be going to
c) Progressive aspect
d) Simple present tense
e) Will/Shall + progressive aspect (rare and
informal)

Frequency
Expressions of frequency answer the
question How many times? or How
often?.
-Upper limit: always
-Lower limit: never

Abstract frequency
-Medical books always seem to cost the earth.
-Children often dislike tomatoes.
-Students rarely fail this course.

Place, Direction and Distance

Answer the question Where?
Mainly adverbials and postmodifiers
Prepositions of place
a) at-type prepositions, indicating a point
b) on-type prepositions, indicating a line
c) in-type prepositions, indicating an area or a
volume

At-type prepositions
a
t
to

away
from
(away)
from

On-type prepositions: Line

Subject matter: about and on

About and on can both indicate the subject
of a discussion:
-She told me about her adventures.
-He gave us an excellent lecture on/about
European social history.
-Have you any books on/about stampcollecting?

The fixed categories

Verbs/nouns that go both with Verbs/nouns that go only with
ON/ABOUT
ABOUT
Speak about/on

Teach (someone) about

Lecture about/on

Learn about

Argue about/on

Read about

Write about/on

A quarrel about

A book about/on

A story about

A discussion about/on

Ignorance about