Verb Tenses As Indicators Of Time Worksheet

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Verb Tenses as Indicators of Time Worksheet
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The Rules:
English verbs use different tenses to describe when an event occurred. Each tense uses auxiliary
verbs (also called helping or modal verbs) to precisely describe whether an action is ongoing or
completed, and whether that action occurred in the past, present, or future.
To make things more complicated, verb tenses also describe how different events relate to each
other in time.
I. Progressive (or continuous tenses) describe actions that are in progress, or occur over a
duration, at a particular time.
Examples:
1. The bird was flying back and forth to its nest all day (the past progressive was flying
indicates that the bird’s movement occurred over a duration of time: all day).
2.
By cooking your own meals, you are also being creative (the present progressive are being
indicates that whenever the cooking occurs, the cook’s creativity is generally, or universally
true).
II. Perfect tenses are used to describe action that were completed, or entirely finished, relative to
another action.
Examples:
1. He has already eaten his lunch (the present perfect has eaten means that the lunch has been
finished relative to the present moment).
2. By the time she got to the library, it had been closed for two hours (the past perfect had been
closed indicates that relative to her arrival at the library, the library’s closure was completed
two hours ago).
III. Perfect progressive tenses are used to describe the duration of an action that is in progress
before, up to, or after another event.
Examples:
1. When he gets home from work, his wife will have been running on the treadmill for twenty
minutes (the perfect progressive will have been running indicates the duration of future
action relative to the present tense gets).
2. She has been eating that burger for over an hour (the present perfect progressive has been
eating indicates the duration of her action relative to the present time).

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