Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Likewise, the Spanish verb ir ("to go") can be used to express the future: Mi padre va a llegar mañana ("My father is going to arrive tomorrow"). Here the preposition a is used, analogous to the English to; the French construction does not have this. In Welsh, a Brittonic and Celtic language, the verb mynd ("to go") is used much like the ...
Use of modal verbs with future meaning, to combine the expression of future time with certain modality: "I must do this" (also mun in Northern English dialect); "We should help him"; "I can get out of here"; "We may win"; "You might succeed". The same modal verbs are also often used with present rather than future reference.
Latin has defective verbs that possess forms only in the perfect tense; such verbs have no present tense forms whatsoever. These verbs are still present in meaning. For example, the first-person form odi ("I hate") and infinitive odisse ("to hate") appear to be the perfect of a hypothetical verb *odo/odio, but in fact have a present-tense meaning.
English also has other ways of referring to future circumstances, including the going to construction, and in many cases the ordinary present tense – details of these can be found in the article on the going-to future. The verbs will and shall, when used as future
The present participle form, which is also used for the gerund, is formed by adding the suffix -ing to the base form: go → going. A final silent e is dropped (believe → believing); final ie changes to y (lie → lying), and consonant doubling applies as for the past tense (see above): run → running, panic → panicking.
Latin verbs are inflected for tense and aspect together with mood (indicative, subjunctive, infinitive, and imperative) and voice (active or passive). Most verbs can be built by selecting a verb stem and adapting them to endings. Endings may vary according to the speech role, the number and the gender of the subject or an object.
Particular rules apply to the tenses and verb forms used after the verb wish and certain other expressions with similar meaning. When the verb wish governs a finite clause, the past tense (simple past or past progressive as appropriate) is used when the desire expressed concerns a present state, the past perfect (or past perfect progressive ...
The first English grammar, Bref Grammar for English by William Bullokar, published in 1586, does not use the term "auxiliary" but says: All other verbs are called verbs-neuters-un-perfect because they require the infinitive mood of another verb to express their signification of meaning perfectly: and be these, may, can, might or mought, could, would, should, must, ought, and sometimes, will ...