GRAMMAR REVIEW - Week 7 - Past tenses and modals

Overview of tenses in English (Present and past)

Tense	Construction	Example	Main value(s)
Simple present	V (+3rd person –s)	I play the guitar He plays football.	_ characteristics, generalities _ habits
Present continuous	Am/is/are + V-ing	He is eating	_ ongoing activities _ description and comments
Simple past (=preterite)	V + -ed (except irregular verbs)	They visited	_ break with present _ completed action _ dated, sequential events
Past continuous	Was/Were + V-ing	We were talking when …	_ interrupted activity _ “background”, context
Past perfect	Had + V-en	The man they had seen …	_ past in the past, flashback _ assessment in the past
Past perfect continuous	Had been + V-ing	We had been watching Tv for 2 hours when…	_ idem + activity
Present perfect	Has/Have + V-en	We have lived her for 10 years	_ link with the present _ assessment in the present
Present perfect continuous	Has/Have been +V-ing	They have been fighting for their rights for 10 years.	_ idem + activity

1)     Remember !!!

_ there is no direct equivalence between French and English tenses!

Ex: Ils sont arrivés aux USA en 1620 => They arrived in 1620. (The event happened in the past)

And vice versa : They have lived in Massachusetts for  four centuries now. => Ils vivent aux Massachusetts depuis quatre siècles. (En français, “ont vécu pendant…” = ils n’y habitent plus!)

– passive does not mean past! The passive voice is not a tense but a different way to look at the action, and can be combined with all of the tenses above!

The passive always requires BE (conjugated in the appropriate tense) + V-en

ex: They had been persecuted

 

1)     Practice conjugating the verbs as indicated:

ANSWERS:

played / was driving /has not seen /have been living /had already left /had been swimming

 

=>  REVIEW EXERCISE: exercise Week7 Tenses

=>  IF YOUR SCORE WAS LOWER THAN 90% ON THESE EXERCISES, READ MORE AND DO ADDITIONAL EXERCISES:

English grammar in use (with answers) [425 MUR] (+ CD-ROM in Centre de Langues Salle Multimedia)

 Present and past (Units 1-6); Present perfect and past (Units7-16)

Grammaire raisonnée 2 [425 PER] (livre + livret de corrigé des exercices)

 Chapitre 1 – Temps et aspects

MODALS - Review

1)      Rules – Construction:

1. Modals are followed by an infinitive (but without the preposition to): He must to go.
2. You cannot add a 3rd person –s ! (cans)
3. A modal cannot be followed by a conjugated verb ( “can’t lived”!)
4. You can’t use two modals in a row (“must can”!)

2) Value – what they mean. Compare these sentences

a) He has such a big house. He must be very rich!

b) You must follow the instructions.

In sentence b), “must” expresses an obligation. => It is a ROOT modal

In sentence a), “must” is used to make a hypothesis. => It is an EPISTEMIC modal

A) Epistemic modals express a degree of probability; we can rank them as follows:

Can’t 0% > Might, Could 25% > May 50% > Must, should 90% > Will 100%

impossible = can’t/ somewhat possible = might/ quite possible = may/ almost certain = must /  certain = will

To make hypotheses about the past, use modal + have + past participle

They must have left (ils doivent être partis)/ He can’t have killed her (il ne peut pas l’avoir tuée).

B) Root modals give information about the subject (ex: capacity) or express interpersonal constraints

Modal	Value	Negation	Value
Can	1) Capacity, Ability     2) Permission	Can’t	1) Incapacity      2) Prohibition
May	Permission	May not	Prohibition
Must	Obligation	Mustn’t	Prohibition
Should	(Strong) recommendation	Shouldn’t	Recommendation not to do something

NB: If you want to express an absence of obligation, you need to use “don’t have to” (not mustn’t!)

Since most modals do not have past forms, you will need to replace them with equivalents.

Modal	Value	Negation	Value
Can	1) could, was/were able to 2) could, was/were allowed to	Can’t	1) couldn’t, wasn’t/weren’t able to 2) couldn’t, wasn’t/weren’t allowed to
May	Might	May not	Mightn’t
Must	Had to	Mustn’t	Wasn’t/weren’t allowed to

NB: might and mightn’t are quite formal, so are less frequent than could(n’t) or was(n’t)/were(n’t) allowed to

=>  EXERCISE: exercise Week7 Modals

=>  IF YOUR SCORE WAS LOWER THAN 90% ON THESE EXERCISES, READ MORE AND DO ADDITIONAL EXERCISES:

English grammar in use (with answers) [425 MUR] (+ CD-ROM in Centre de Langues Salle Multimedia)

Units 26-34 (modals –select the appropriate unit)

Grammaire raisonnée 2 [425 PER] (livre + livret de corrigé des exercices)

                Chapitre 4 – la modalité