Essential English Grammar: Tenses, Articles, and Modals

Posted on Oct 3, 2025 in Naval Architecture and Marine Systems Engineering

Verb Classification and Forms

Verbs are categorized as either Lexical Verbs (e.g., drive, cook) or Auxiliary Verbs.

Auxiliary Verbs

  • Primary Auxiliary Verbs: Can function as both auxiliary or main verbs (e.g., have, be, do).
  • Modal Auxiliary Verbs: (e.g., must, can, will).

Verb Forms

  • Base Form: Imperative, Present, Infinitive (e.g., drive).
  • S-Form: Present third-person singular (e.g., drives).
  • Past Form: (e.g., drove).
  • -ing Form: Gerund or Active Participle (e.g., driving).
  • Past/Passive Participle: (e.g., driven).

Finite and Non-Finite Verb Phrases

Finite Forms

  • Have tense distinction.
  • May occur as the main verb.
  • Person and number concordance between subject and verb.
  • Express mood (Indicative, Imperative, Subjunctive).

Non-Finite Forms

Include the Infinitive (bare or to-infinitive), the -ing Participle, and the Past Participle.

Tense and Aspect

Tense is a grammatical category realized by verb inflection, used to locate an event in time. Time is a non-linear concept with three divisions: Past, Present, and Future.

Aspect indicates the manner in which the verbal action is regarded. For example, the verbal act can be seen as completed (Perfective Aspect) or in progress (Progressive Aspect).

Present Tense Usage

Simple Present Tense

Uses of the Simple Present Form:

  • Sequence of events repeated over a period (Habitual Present).
  • Universal statements (State Present).
  • Actions happening at the time of speaking (Instantaneous Present).
  • Feelings, opinions, relations, and verbs of reporting.

Simple Present for Past Reference

  • Historic Present: A stylistic device in fictional narrative for imaginary events in the past.
  • With verbs of communication (e.g., tell) where the information is still valid.
  • In news headlines to make a past event seem more current.

Simple Present with Future Meaning

  • In subordinate clauses.
  • In main clauses, when a future event is certain to take place.
  • Statements about the calendar or schedules.
  • Immutable events (eternal truths).

Present Progressive Tense

  • Moment of speaking.
  • Things happening around now.
  • Repetition taking place over a limited period (Habitual Progressive); the habit is temporary.
  • Temporary states (e.g., living temporarily).
  • Expressing disapproval (e.g., always complaining).

Stative Verbs in the Progressive

Stative verbs describe states which continue over a period of time. Typically, they denote cognition, feelings, existence, or possession. Verbs with a stative sense do not occur in the progressive. If they do occur in the progressive, they take on a dynamic meaning (implying a beginning and an end).

Present Perfect Tenses

Present Perfect Tense

  • Relates a past event to a present situation (Current Relevance).
  • Giving news (details often follow in the Simple Past).
  • Situations that have existed for a long time (often with always).
  • Focus on quantity: How much, how many things, how many times.

Present Perfect Progressive

  • Limited duration (or incompleteness).
  • Recent activity, the effects of which are obvious now.
  • Situations over a short period.
  • Focus on duration: How long.
  • Actions repeated over a long period.

Nouns: Number, Countability, and Plural Forms

Number in the Noun Phrase is marked by plural endings and plural determiners. Outside the Noun Phrase, it is marked in the verb form.

Number Concordance Issues

  1. Singular nouns with plural form (use singular verb).
  2. Nouns that have a singular form but are plural (use plural verb).
  3. Nouns that only have a plural form.
  4. Nouns that have the same form in singular and plural; they can take a singular or plural verb.

Invariable Nouns

  • Invariable Singular Nouns: Always singular (e.g., subjects, diseases, games, miscellaneous items).
  • Invariable Plural Nouns: Always plural.
  • Collective Nouns: Some group words can have a singular verb if we think of the group as an important unit, and a plural verb if we think of the group as a number of people or individual members.

Countability

Countable Nouns refer to individual, counted entities. Uncountable Nouns refer to an undifferentiated mass. The idea of countability determines the possibility of combination with certain determiners.

Determiners for Countable Nouns

The, a/an, zero (plural), some (plural), many, several, (a) few, this/these, numerals.

Determiners for Uncountable Nouns

The, a/an, zero, some, any, a lot of, much, (a) little, this/that.

Typically Uncountable Nouns

  • Substances (e.g., water, air).
  • Abstract ideas (e.g., happiness, information).
  • Mass/Collection (e.g., furniture, luggage).

Plural Forms

Regular Plural Forms

  • General Realization: Adding -s (applies to abbreviations and foreign nouns too).
  • Specific Cases:
    1. Adding -es (after sibilants and after o).
    2. Doubling the final consonant (rare).
    3. Single letters, names of years, and acronyms.

Irregular Plural Forms

  1. Voicing: Voiced plurals (13 nouns): f becomes -ves; voiced plural $\theta > \delta$; $s > z$.
  2. Mutation: (e.g., men, women, feet, teeth, lice, mice, geese).
  3. -en Plural: (e.g., children, oxen, brethren).
  4. Zero Plural:
    • Animals: sheep, cod, deer, pheasant, salmon, trout, herring, fish.
    • Nations ending in -ese.
    • Quantity nouns: dozen, hundred, head of cattle, million.

Determiners and Article Usage

Types of Determiners

  • Predeterminers: (e.g., both, half, all, double).
  • Central Determiners: (e.g., the, a, this).
  • Postdeterminers: (e.g., seven, many, few).

The Definite Article (The)

  • Situational Context: Referent is recoverable from the speech situation.
  • General Context: Shared knowledge.
  • With superlatives, restrictors, and ordinals.
  • Anaphoric Reference: Referring back to something already mentioned.
  • The referent is made clear in the following context.
  • Use with Proper Nouns: Titular names, geographical names of plural form (groups of islands, mountain ranges), names of rivers, oceans, seas, names of countries and states (Republic, Kingdom, Union, States), names of theaters, museums, galleries, names of ships and aircraft, names of journals.
  • Animals, inventions, discoveries, musical instruments.
  • Nationality (referring to the whole group).
  • Whole classes (e.g., the blind).

The Indefinite Article (A/An)

  • First mention of something or someone in a conversation.
  • Before professions.
  • Expressions of quantity, amounts, and frequency.
  • Expressions with What…!
  • Generic reference.

The Zero Article

  • Quasi-Locatives: Where a particular activity in connection with the location is implied (e.g., go to school).
  • Transport and communication (e.g., by bus).
  • Time expressions (especially after at, by, after, before).
  • Seasons, meals, illnesses.
  • Prepositional phrases, complex prepositions, and binominal expressions used adverbially.
  • Generic reference (with plural or uncountable nouns).
  • Proper Nouns: Personal names, languages, locational names, in exclamations with What + uncountable noun.

Past Tenses and Usage

Simple Past Tense

The Simple Past is used for:

  • A particular point in time.
  • A period of time.
  • A gap between its completion and the present moment.
  • It sometimes appears with a past time-position adverb (e.g., last week).

The Simple Past covers Event Past, Habitual Past, and State Past.

Special Uses (Unreal Past)

  • Reported Speech: (e.g., She said that she knew you).
  • Attitudinal Past (Politeness): (e.g., Did you want…?).
  • Hypothetical Past: Used in conditional clauses.

Used To and Would

Used to refers to regular past actions and states that do not happen now. Would is a stylistic variation used in order to not repeat used to, but it is not used with stative verbs.

Simple Past vs. Past Progressive

They are often used together to describe simultaneous actions:

  • Simple Past: Describes something that happened at a definite point in time (the main event).
  • Past Progressive: Describes limited duration, incomplete action, or being in the middle of doing something (the background action).

Past Perfect Tense

We use the Past Perfect to say that something had already happened before a past action (Anteriority). It can also be used to express wishes about specific past events (Regrets).

Expressing Future Time

There is no single future tense in English. Future time is rendered by modal auxiliaries, semi-auxiliaries, the Simple Present form, and progressive forms.

Modal Auxiliaries for Future

Will

Used for instantaneous decisions and predictions when there is no evidence.

  • Predictive Will: The future event will result from the fulfillment of certain conditions.
  • Volitional Will: Expresses willingness.

Shall

  • More formal.
  • Only used with the first person (I/We).
  • Giving information about the future and predictions.
  • Commands (e.g., in the Bible).
  • Suggestions and offers.

Semi-Auxiliaries

  • Be Going To:
    1. Future of present intent (already decided).
    2. Future of present cause: Prediction based on some evidence in the present situation.
  • Be To + Infinitive: Arrangements, commands, destiny, conditional sentences about preconditions for something to happen.
  • Be About To + Infinitive: Near future.

Progressive and Perfect Forms

Progressive Forms (Present Progressive)

Future arising from present arrangements, plans, or programs. It suggests that the future event is imminent. Also used for plans that can be changed.

Will/Shall + Be + Progressive

  • Temporary situations.
  • Situations in progress (emphasizing the action at a particular time in the future).

Will + Perfect (Future Perfect)

E.g., will have arrived (completion before a future point).

Modal Verbs: Obligation, Ability, Possibility

Obligation and Necessity

  • Must: Strong obligation (authority of the speaker), formal rules or laws, suggestions, advice, recommendations.
  • Have To: Strong obligation (authority of a third party), reminding about a law (speaker is not responsible).
  • Have Got To: Colloquial, emphatic, direct commands, used only in the present.
  • Need To: Expresses necessity.

Negatives of Obligation

Mustn’t (Prohibition); Don’t have to, Haven’t got to, Don’t need to, Needn’t (Lack of obligation).

Should expresses mild obligation.

Ability

  • Can: Possibility, ability to do something, suggesting a possible future action.
  • Be Able To: More formal; used in the Present Perfect, Future, after modals, and after to.
  • Could (Past Ability): General ability in the past, possibility (e.g., They could arrive…), requests (e.g., Could I…?), and with verbs of perception and thinking.
  • Was/Were Able To: Ability in a particular situation. (Note: In questions and negatives, both could and was/were able to are often correct).

Possibility and Certainty

  • Possibility: Could, May, Might.
  • Certainty: Must.

Possibility and Negation

  • May/Might + Not: (Not goes with the second verb).
  • Can/Could + Not: (Not goes with the modal).

Modals with Perfect Forms

Using May, Might, Can, Could, Must + Present Perfect:

  • May/Might + Perfect: It is possible that something happened in the past.
  • Could + Perfect: A possible result that did not happen (counterfactual).

Verb Complementation Patterns

A Verb Complement is the grammatical pattern that follows a verb and completes the specification of a meaning relationship which that word implies. The Verb Complementation Pattern is the particular realization a verb complement takes.

Monotransitive Complementation (V + DO)

Complements can take the form of a Noun Phrase, a Finite Clause, or Non-Finite Complementation.

The Bare Infinitive is used in modal auxiliaries, verbs of perception, and causative verbs.