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The first of these sentences is a basic zero conditional with both clauses in the present tense. The fourth is an example of the use of will in a condition clause [4] (for more such cases, see below). The use of verb tenses, moods and aspects in the parts of such sentences follows general principles, as described in Uses of English verb forms.
Verb tenses are inflectional forms which can be used to express that something occurs in the past, present, or future. [1] In English, the only tenses are past and non-past, though the term "future" is sometimes applied to periphrastic constructions involving modals such as will and go.
The use of tenses is quite similar to English: In implicative conditional sentences, the present tense (or other appropriate tense, mood, etc.) is used in both clauses. In predictive conditional sentences, the future tense or imperative generally appears in the main clause, but the condition clause is formed with the present tense (as in English).
It should be noted that, since the distinction between tense, mood and aspect in grammar is sometimes fuzzy, some may disagree with some of the below categorisations. Pages in category "Grammatical tenses"
Regular verbs have identical past tense and past participle forms in -ed, but there are 100 or so irregular English verbs with different forms (see list). The verbs have, do and say also have irregular third-person present tense forms (has, does /dʌz/, says /sɛz/).
The indicative conditional uses the present tense form "owns" and therefore conveys that the speaker is agnostic about whether Sally in fact owns a donkey. The counterfactual example uses the fake tense form "owned" in the "if" clause and the past-inflected modal "would" in the "then" clause.
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The word grammar is derived from Greek γραμματικὴ τέχνη (grammatikḕ téchnē), which means "art of letters", from γράμμα (grámma), "letter", itself from γράφειν (gráphein), "to draw, to write". [3]