An English Lesson

This topic came up in my writers' group, so I thought I'd post the rules, so we can all be confident that we're speaking and writing the goodest way we can. Yes, I meant to do that. Okay, so a verb has 3 principle parts - the present form, the past form, and the past participle. The past and past participles of regular verbs are made by adding ed to the present form (call, called, called). Irregular verbs don't do this because they're... duh, irregular. Sometimes they have three different words for the three forms (begin, began, begun), and sometimes they have the same word for all three forms (burst, burst, burst).

Now, on to the fun stuff!! TENSES! Yay!

present - expresses action or existence happening now or continually. I hear the stalker's voice as he calls from the tree that sits near the corner of the road.

past - expresses action or existence which is completed at a particular time in the past. I heard him this morning.

future - expresses action that will take place. Quint will kick Chase's butt tomorrow.

present perfect tense - expresses action which began in the past but continues or is completed in the present - to form this tense, add has or have to the past participle. She has practiced target shooting for many days.

past perfect tense -  expresses action which began and was completed in the past - to form this tense, add had to the past participle. She had forgotten her pistol the last time she went to the docks.

futer perfect tense - expresses action which will begin in the future and will be completed by a specific time in the future - to form this tense, add shall have or will have to the past participle. Jayna will have returned to her apartment before she gets the phone call.

Now, all of this info I dug out of my old middle school books (let's not talk about how long ago that was), so it could be very antiquated. I mean, I remember when "cookie" was spelled "cooky" and you only switched to the '-ie" form when it went plural.

Anyways, now we know, and knowing is half the battle (yes, I'm aging myself again).  Have a great week!