Tense
Tense refers to the way a verb is inflected to suggest the time an action occurred. This can be directly indicated in a verb by changing its form (i.e. morphologically). English only has only two verb tenses – the present tense ‘I leave’ and the past tense, ‘I left’; however, we have many other ways of creating or suggesting the idea of tense by using auxiliary verbs or other structures that indicate the time of an action. For example, each of the following grammatical structures suggests a future event, or a future aspect (the ‘will’ construction is often, but loosely, called ‘the English future tense’):
- I will leave in the morning.
- I am going to leave in the morning.
- I shall leave in the morning.
- I leave in the morning.
- I am leaving in the morning.
