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For example, bore and found may be past tenses of bear and find, but may also represent independent (regular) verbs of different meaning. Another example is lay, which may be the past tense of lie, but is also an independent verb (regular in pronunciation, but with irregular spelling: lay–laid–laid).
Regular in past tense and sometimes in past participle. must – (no other forms) Defective: Originally a preterite; see English modal verbs: need (needs/need) – needed – needed: Weak: Regular except in the use of need in place of needs in some contexts, by analogy with can, must, etc; [4] see English modal verbs: ought – (no other forms ...
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Gone is the past participle of go. Went is the simple past tense of go. [51] [52] Non-standard: Looking back on it, they should have went No. 1 in their respective drafts. [53] Non-standard: She had previously underwent a surgical procedure to remove an abscess discovered during a recent ultrasound. [54]
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.
The past progressive or past continuous construction combines progressive aspect with past tense, and is formed using the past tense of be (was or were) with the present participle of the main verb. It indicates an action that was ongoing at the past time being considered:
English is an example of a language with no general imperfective. The English progressive is used to describe ongoing events, but can still be used in past tense, such as "The rain was beating down". Habitual situations do not have their own verb form (in most dialects), but the construction "used to" conveys past habitual action, as in I used ...
In particular, would and should are used as the past equivalents of will and shall in indirect speech reported in the past tense: The ladder will fall. → He said that the ladder would fall. You shall obey me! → He said that I should obey him. I shall go swimming this afternoon. → I said that I should go swimming in the afternoon.