o I studied last night
o She visited me two days ago
o My sister was born in 1990
According A. J. Thomson and A. V. Martinet said, “the simple past tense is used for an action whose time is not given but which a occupied a period of
time now terminated, or b occurred at a moment in a period of time now terminated.
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As the same as George E. Wishon and Julia M. Burks idea that. “if the time is mentioned or implied, the past tense is usually used”.
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Based on the definition above, the writer make the conclusion that simple past tense is used to express a definite event in the past. Then simple past shows
the situation or activities in the finished time in the past and time is clear or mentioned.
2. The Form of Simple Past Tense
In English, a main or lexical verb is any word that can be conjugated, i.e., that can add the morphemes ing, ed, and e s to mark, respectively, present
participle, past tensepast participle, and third person singular present tense. English verbs are divided into two classes; they are regular form and
irregular form. These classifications come from the way the verb forms its simple past and past participle.
Regular verbs have predictable past tense form, ie –d or –ed is added to the end of the base form.
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• Yesterday I worked hard • He finished the job an hour ago
• She washed the clothes last week
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A. J. Thomson and A. V. Martinet, A Practical English Grammar, 4 edition, Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 162
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George E. Wishon and Julia M. Burks, Lets Write English,…..,p. 206
34
Kam Chuan Aik and Kam Kai Hui, Longman Dictionary of grammar and usage, Singapore, Addison Wesley Longman, 1999, p. 297
Irregular verbs do not have past tense forms that can be predicted by rules:
Base form Past form
Bite Bit
Buy Bought
Put Put
Eat Ate
Based on Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum, they said “the past V – ed
1
and the –ed participle V-ed
2
of regular verbs spelled –ed unless the base ends in –e have three spoken realizations:
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id after bases ending in d and t, eg pad – padded
pat – patted d after bases ending in voiced sounds other than d, eg
mow – mowed budge – budged
t after bases ending in voiceless sounds other than t, eg Pass – passed
pack - packed the abbreviation V-ed will be used where V-ed
1
has the same form as V- ed
2
Irregular verbs typically, but not necessarily, have variation in their base vowel:
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Find – found – found write – wrote - written
A. J Thomson and A. V Martinet said, “the simple past tense in regular
verbs is formed by adding ed to the infinitive……, verbs ending in e add d only……, the negative of regular and irregular verbs is formed with did not
didn’t and the infinitive……., the interrogative of regular and irregular verbs is formed with did + subject + infinitive.
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Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum, A University Grammar of English,London: Longman, 1977, p. 29
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Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum, A University Grammar of English, ….,p. 31
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A. J. Thomson and A. V. Martinet, A Practical English Grammar,,,.p. 161
According to A. J Thomson and A. V Martinet the formula in simple past tense are:
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Verbs other than to be Question
word Did
Subject Did not
Or didn’t
Past tense form
Base for
Affirmative He
They waited
spoke Question
When did
you ring?
Negative I
didn’t understand
With most verbs, the simple past is created simply by adding -ED. However, with some verbs, you need to add -ES or change the ending a little.
Here are the rules:
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Verb ending in… How to make the simple
past Examples
e add-D
live – lived date - dated
Consonant + y Change y to i, then
add- ED try – tried
cry - cried One vowel +one
consonant but not w or y
Double the consonant, the add- ED
tap – tapped commit - commited
Anything else Add- ED
boil – boiled fill – filled
hand - handed
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A. J. Thomson and A. V. Martinet, A Practical English Grammar,,,.p. 184
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http:web2.uvcs.uvic.caelcstudyzone330grammarpasted.htm
3. The Usage of Simple Past Tense
