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The simple past or past simple, sometimes also called the preterite, consists of the bare past tense of the verb (ending in -ed for regular verbs, and formed in various ways for irregular ones, with the following spelling rules for regular verbs: verbs ending in -e add only –d to the end (e.g. live – lived, not *liveed), verbs ending in -y ...
(The present participle and gerund forms of verbs, ending in -ing, are always regular. In English, these are used as verbs, adjectives, and nouns.) In the case of modal verbs the present and preterite forms are listed, since these are the only forms that exist with the present form identical for all persons.
The base form or plain form of an English verb is not marked by any inflectional ending.. Certain derivational suffixes are frequently used to form verbs, such as -en (sharpen), -ate (formulate), -fy (electrify), and -ise/ize (realise/realize), but verbs with those suffixes are nonetheless considered to be base-form verbs.
(The verb hoist behaves similarly to verbs in this group, but this was originally itself a past form of the now obsolete verb hoise; similarly clad was originally – and sometimes still is – a past form of clothe.) Verbs with coalescence of consonants and devoicing of the ending: bend, build, lend, rend, send, spend.
The third person singular present tense is formed regularly, except in the case of the modal verbs (can, shall, etc.) which do not add -s, the verb be (which has three present indicative forms: am, is and are), and the three verbs have, do and say, which produce the forms has, does (pronounced with a short vowel, /dʌz/), and says (pronounced ...
In some verbs the process went further and produced irregular forms—cf. Spanish haré (instead of *haceré, 'I'll do') and tendré (not *teneré, 'I'll have'; the loss of e followed by epenthesis of d is especially common)—and even regular forms (in Italian, the change of the a in the stem cantare to e in canterò has affected the whole ...
The English passive voice typically involves forms of the verbs to be or to get followed by a passive participle as the subject complement—sometimes referred to as a passive verb. [1] English allows a number of additional passive constructions that are not possible in many other languages with analogous passive formations to the above.
The non-past verb forms are conjugated by person/number, while the past verb forms are conjugated by gender/number. The present tense is indicated with the non-past imperfective form. The future in the perfective aspect is expressed by applying the conjugation of the present form to the perfective version of the verb.