Is Could the past tense of can?

hana · Post by **hana** » Fri Mar 12, 2004 11:59 am

I need help!!! I am supposed to do a five-minute presentation about "Is could the past tense of can?"

I was wondering if anyone could provide me with some guidelines. Should I only focus on the past tense or should I go to refer to other possibilities.

Thank you

Tessa Olive · Post by **Tessa Olive** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 1:09 am

Could can be used to express past abilities. E.g. As a child, I could run very fast. Now I can't. I couldn't read back then but now I can. However, as you're aware, could is used to express a multitude of things such as expressing possibility, making suggestions, indicating permission, making requests etc. If I were doing a 5 minute presentation (and remember, 5 minutes isn't very long!) I would say yes, could is the past tense of can but not exclusively, and I'd definitely give examples of other ways we use could.
Good luck.

Roger · Post by **Roger** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 8:05 am

I go along with Tesse's post.
Maybe you are not in the full know of verbs in general, and modal verbs in particular; might be useful to refresh your theory:
- Can is one of less than a dozen modal verbs; as such, they do not
have any particular third-person form (ending in S), nor do they have
tenses (note there are exceptions); this means they function differently
to how all other verbs function: You don't need to use the auxiliary
"to do" in negative statements or questions.
- Thus, the verb has only one form under all circumstances, and therefore
it generally eludes the possibility of expressing something in the past or
the future; to some extent, there are exceptions as in the cases of
can (past: could); will (would), shall (should).

Lorikeet · Post by **Lorikeet** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 8:25 am

Roger wrote: - Thus, the verb has only one form under all circumstances, and therefore
it generally eludes the possibility of expressing something in the past or
the future; to some extent, there are exceptions as in the cases of
can (past: could); will (would), shall (should).

Could you give some examples of should being past for shall? For me it's archaic in that form, and I don't know how it's used.