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Education Resources

Verb – Uses of Verb in Tenses from Business Communication of MBA

Friday, December 11, 2009

Verb is the name of action in English grammar. Verb is divided into two parts – Transitive Verb and Intransitive Verb.

Transitive verb: the action passes from the subject to an object.

For example – My cat killed a rat.

In the sentence, the action of “killing” passes from the “cat” to the “rat”. In the sentence “killed” will be known as the transitive verb.

Intransitive verb: the action does not have any succeeding object. It merely points to a condition.

For example – The girl is dancing.

The action of “dancing” does not have any object that comes after it. Here “dancing” is an intransitive verb.

Uses of Verb in Tenses:

Tense refers to the time of action. The form of main verb changes with the change of tense. Tense has twelve structures.

Simple Present:

It is known for habitual action and permanent truths or facts.

Rules - Subject + V1

For example – The sun rises in the east.

Present Continuous:

The tense indicates the present time when an action is going on.

Rules – Subject + {is, am are} + V1+ ing

For example – My son is drawing scenery.

Present Perfect:

The tense indicates an action that has happened at an indefinite time in the past.

Rules – Subject + {have, has} + V3

For example – My father has just left.

Present Perfect Continuous:

The tense indicates an action that began in the past and still occurring in the present.

Rules – Subject + {have, has} + been + V1 + ing

For example – He has been working in Washington for 5 years.

Simple Past:

The tense is used for a completed action that had happened in the past. It indicates habits of the past also.

Rules – Subject + V2

For example – We always played together.

Past Continuous:

The tense indicates an action which was occurring in the past and was interrupted by another action.

Rules – Subject + {was, were} + V1 + ing

For example – I was watching cricket.

Past Perfect:

The tense is used to indicate an action that happened before another action in the past. Usually two actions are mentioned in the sentence.

Rules – Subject + Had + V3

For example – Ram had gone to the store.

Past Perfect Continuous:

The tense is used to convey an action which happened in the past and continued for certain time.

Rules – Subject + had + been + V1 + ing

For example – Ramu had been working at the university before he retired.

Simple Future:

The tense is used to express the speaker’s opinions or assumptions about the future.

Rules – Subject + {will, shall} + V1

For example – They will wait for us.

Future Continuous:

The tense is used to express an action as going on at some time in the future.

Rules – Subject + {will, shall} + be + V1 + ing

For example – I will be helping Marie tomorrow.

Future Perfect:

The tense is used for an action which at a given future time will be in the past. It is usually used with a time expression “by then”, “by that time”.

Rules – Subject + {will, shall} + have + V3

For example – By the end of next month he will have been here for ten years.

Future Perfect Continuous:

The tense can be used instead of future perfect tense.

Rules – Subject + {will, shall} + have + been + V1 + ing

For example – By the end of the week he will have been training pupils for ten years.

Verb and tense are interrelated elements in English grammar. It is the basic chapter of learning English. We already have discussed about Noun and Pronoun in the communication process chapter. Now, the Verb and uses of verb in tenses will surly improve your grammar skills. It will help in the examination of Business Communication of SMU MBA also.

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