PAST AND PAST CONTINUOUS TENSE

 

PAST TANSE

The past tense (abbreviated PST) is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment (in an absolute tense system), or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future (in a relative tense system). Not all languages mark verbs for the past tense (Mandarin Chinese, for example, does not); in some languages, the grammatical expression of past tense is combined with the expression of mood and/or aspect (see tense–aspect–mood). Some languages that mark for past tense do so by inflecting the verb, while others do so by using auxiliary verbs (and some do both).

FORMULA ::
S + Past Form of the Verb + O (+)
S + did not+ V1 (-)
did+S+v1 (?)

EX::
(+) Anisa bought a new house last week
(-) Arya did not buy a new house last week
(?) dia Adela buy a new house last week


PAST CONTINOUS TENSE

FORMULA ::
A. S+was/were+verb (ing)+when+S+V2
discuss two instances where when an event is in progress, an other even log
EX::
- my sister was watching television when the rain BEGAN

B. S+was/were+verb(ing)+while+S+was/were+verb(ing)
 discusses the two events take place both in the past
EX::
- Enrico was reading a newspaper while his brother was typing a letter
- My mother was sleeping while my father was eating dinner

if (-) S+was/were+not+v(ing) = the children were not playing in the yard
if (?) was/were+S+V(ing) = were the children playing in the yard 

Past Continuous Tense + Simple Past Tense

 

We often use the past continuous tense with the simple past tense. We use the past continuous tense to express a long action. And we use the simple past tense to express a short action that happens in the middle of the long action. We can join the two ideas with when or while.
In the following example, we have two actions:

1. long action (watching TV), expressed with past continuous tense
2. short action (telephoned), expressed with simple past tense

past	present	future
Long action.
I was watching TV at 8pm. 8pm You telephoned at 8pm.
Short action.

We can join these two actions with when:

• I was watching TV when you telephoned.

(Notice that "when you telephoned" is also a way of defining the time [8pm].)
We use:

• when + short action (simple past tense)
• while + long action (past continuous tense)

There are four basic combinations:

	I was walking past the car	when	it exploded.
When	the car exploded		I was walking past it.
	The car exploded	while	I was walking past it.
While	I was walking past the car		it exploded.

Notice that the long action and short action are relative.

• "Watching TV" took a few hours. "Telephoned" took a few seconds.
• "Walking past the car" took a few seconds. "Exploded" took a few milliseconds.

Posted By Sameera Chathuranga

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