What tense is used?
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What tense is used?
The email will be sent out tomorrow.
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Many teachers, and some relatively informal books, would call that the "future passive" tense, and the term has admittedly become a reasonably convenient shorthand. It is however technically-speaking not really correct, but I hesitate to bore you with the details because I am not sure you'll be up for reading them. (Briefly though, modal verbs aren't a true/full part of the verb inflections of English, so one should really call such a construction as 'The email will be sent [out] tomorrow' a "modalized passive" or somesuch).
Anyway, here are some previous and more detailed related discussions if you are interested:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... 3934#43934
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic ... 206#899206
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... 3962#43962
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic ... 280#714280
Anyway, here are some previous and more detailed related discussions if you are interested:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... 3934#43934
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic ... 206#899206
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... 3962#43962
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic ... 280#714280
Last edited by fluffyhamster on Sat May 28, 2011 7:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
What part of speech is 'on time' in these sentences?
Please be on time.
The students came to class on time.
She is on time.
The students came to class on time.
She is on time.
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- Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:57 pm
- Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
I'm not inclined to just keep on pumping out answers, Susie, especially for no thanks at all. And for all I know you could be a trainee teacher (e.g. doing a CELTA) who should really be learning at least some of this stuff for yourself! (Mind you, if you do have a try and really are stumped, come back and plead a little and I suppose I'll relent and tell you the answers ).
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- Posts: 3031
- Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:57 pm
- Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
Aww, alright, here are the answers then:
Please be on time = Not so much to do with tense as mood, this is the IMPERATIVE. (Look up 'mood', then 'imperative', then finally 'indicative' in the following grammar glossary: http://folk.uio.no/hhasselg/terms.html . Note especially the following sentences from the latter two entries respectively: The imperative verb form (identical to the base form of the verb) is finite, although it does not vary for tense, aspect, or person/number. And: The indicative verb form differs from the others [= other moods - FH] in varying for tense and aspect, and in showing grammatical concord with the subject in the present tense).
The students came to class on time = Past tense (of the verb 'come').
She is on time = Present tense (of the verb 'be', inflected/in the form appropriate for the 3rd person singular subject).
Please be on time = Not so much to do with tense as mood, this is the IMPERATIVE. (Look up 'mood', then 'imperative', then finally 'indicative' in the following grammar glossary: http://folk.uio.no/hhasselg/terms.html . Note especially the following sentences from the latter two entries respectively: The imperative verb form (identical to the base form of the verb) is finite, although it does not vary for tense, aspect, or person/number. And: The indicative verb form differs from the others [= other moods - FH] in varying for tense and aspect, and in showing grammatical concord with the subject in the present tense).
The students came to class on time = Past tense (of the verb 'come').
She is on time = Present tense (of the verb 'be', inflected/in the form appropriate for the 3rd person singular subject).