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When was or were is used as the copula, the plan or duty is placed in past time (and quite often implies that it was not carried out). It may also be used simply as a way of expressing "future in the past" (see the following section). For example: I was to visit my aunt, but I missed the train. (past plan, not in fact fulfilled)
The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs sang , went and washed . Most languages have a past tense, with some having several types in order to indicate how far back the action took place.
It is formed by combining had (the past tense of auxiliary have), been (the past participle of be), and the present participle of the main verb. Uses of the past perfect progressive are analogous to those of the present perfect progressive, except that the point of reference is in the past. For example: I was tired because I had been running.
For example, if Jane says "I like chocolate", and Julie later reports that "Jane said that she liked chocolate", Julie's conversion of the present tense like into the past liked implies a reference to past time relative to the time at which Julie is speaking – the center of deixis is moved from the time of Jane's original utterance to that of ...
The simple past is used when the event happened at a particular time in the past, or during a period which ended in the past (i.e. a period that does not last up until the present time). This time frame may be explicitly stated, or implicit in the context (for example the past tense is often used when describing a sequence of past events). [7]
The past participle of regular verbs is identical to the preterite (past tense) form, described in the previous section. For irregular verbs, see English irregular verbs. Some of these have different past tense and past participle forms (like sing–sang–sung); others have the same form for both (like make–made–made).
[1]: 322 Conversely, British English favours fitted as the past tense of fit generally, whereas the preference of American English is more complex: AmE prefers fitted for the metaphorical sense of having made an object [adjective-]"fit" (i.e., suited) for a purpose; in spatial transitive contexts, AmE uses fitted for the sense of having made an ...
The absolute/conjunct distinction is retained in the habitual present tense (also used as, and often referred to as, the future tense) of regular and many irregular verbs. In these cases, the independent form of the verb ends in -(a)idh (cf. Old Irish gaibid above), while the dependent form drops this ending (cf. Old Irish ·gaib above).