The Use of the Past Tense of the Common Aspect

1. The past tense of the common aspect refers an action to the past.

Ex.: Bosinney and June entered the theatre in silence, and mounted to their seats in the upper boxes.(Galsworthy)

2. The past tense is often associated with the following adverbs and adverbial expressions of past time: yesterday, a week ago, last night, last week, last year, this morning (when the morning is already past), which indicate more precisely the past moment to which the action expressed by the past tense refers:

Ex.: I told you as much yesterday. (Galsworthy)

The past tense is used in special questions beginning with when if reference is made to the past

Ex.: ‘ Whendid he come from London?’ I asked. (Dickens)

3. As the common aspect makes a bare statement of an action without concretizing it, the past tense of this aspect may refer to actions of a more general character and to concrete actions as well. When it refers to concrete actions, it presents them not in their progress, but merely occurring in the past. The context usually shows whether the past tense refers to a concrete action or to an action of a more abstract character.

Ex.: She wrote a letter to her friend yesterday. (a concrete action in the past)

When the past tense of the common aspect is used to express recurrent actions, the repetition of the action is also marked by the context.

Ex.: When we lived in the country, we went to town very often.

* A habitual or recurrent action in the past is sometimes expressed by combining:

a) would with the infinitive

Ex.: In the afternoons he would go out alone and walk for hours.(Galsworthy)

Occasionally will + infinitive expresses a habitual action in the present:

Ex.: He will experiment for hours.

b) used to…with the infinitive.

Ex.: ’When I was a child I used to play there.’

4. The past tense is used to express an action planned or anticipated in the future when that future is viewed from a past moment.

Ex.: He told me that he started for London in a week’s time.

5. In adverbial clauses of time and condition introduced by the conjunctions

after, as, before, when, as soon as, etc., the past tense is also used with reference to an action in the future when that future moment is viewed from the past.

Ex.: She determined not to go to bed until Edith returned …(Dickens)

The Future Tense (Common Aspect)

Affirmative	Negative	Interrogative
I shall write he will write we shall write you will write they will write	I shall not write he will not write we shall not write you will not write they will not write	shall I write? will he write? shall we write? will you write? will they write?

The future tense of the common aspect is a compound tense (analytical form); it is formed by means of the auxiliary verbs shall and will followed by the infinitive of the conjugated verb.

In OE there was no special form for the future tense; an action in the future was generally expressed by the present tense.

This usage still survives in such sentences as: We return tomorrow.

Shall and will were originally notional verbs only, will denoting volition or determination, shall- c ompulsion or obligation. But as an action which a person intends to do or is obliged to do usually refers to the future, these verbs losing their original meaning turned into mere auxiliaries of the analytical future tense. Shall is used for the first person singular and plural.

Ex.: ‘ Shall we go down to tea?’ said Soames. (Galsworthy)

But in contemporary English (especially in the USA) there is a strong tendency to use will for all persons, singular and plural.

* The following phraseological combinations: to be on the point of+ gerund, to be about to + infinitive express actions in the immediate future;

Ex.: It was this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of rising. (Bronte)

The expression to be going to+ infinitive also refers an action to the immediate future:

Ex.: The clock is going to strike.

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