Unit 3: Tense, Agreement, Voice; Terminal Punctuation

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本文详细介绍了英语动词的时态（现在时、过去时、将来时）、动词形式与主语数的一致性以及主动语态与被动语态的区别与应用，帮助读者掌握英语动词的使用技巧。

TENSE, AGREEMENT, VOICE

Verbs designate tense, the time when an action or state of being/condition takes place.

All verbs have the characteristic of tense or the time when an action or state of being occurs.

Tense is one of the functions of a verb. Everything that happens (actions or conditions or states), happens in present time, in past time, or in future time. A verb indicates the time of an action, a condition, or a state by changing its form. So, when you write and want to show when something occurs, the place to start is with the verb form you use.

English has twelve active verb forms.

	PRESENT	PAST	FUTURE
Simple Tense
Use	An action or event that occurs regularly or repeatedly.	An action that ended at a specific point in the past.	An action that will occur after now.
Formation	Base form of the verb / base form + s	Add –ed	Will + base form of the verb
Example	laugh/laughs	laughed	will laugh
Progressive Tense
Use	An action that is happening now.	An action was happening (past progressive) when another action happened (simple past).	An action that will be happening over time, in the future, when something else happens.
Formation	Form of be + present participle	Was or were + present participle	Will + be + present participle
Example	am / is / are laughing	was / were laughing	will be laughing
Perfect Tense
Use	An action that happened at an unspecified time in the past.	An action that ended before another action or time in the past.	An action that will end before another action or time in the future.
Formation	have or has + past participle	Had + past participle	Will + have + past participle
Example	has / have laughed	had laughed	will have laughed
Perfect Progressive Tense
Use	An action occurring over time that started in the past and continues into the present.	An action that happened over time, in the past, before another time or action in the past.	An action occurring over time, in the future, before another action or time in the future.
Formation	have + been + present participle	Had + been + present participle	Will + have + been + present participle
Example	has / have been laughing	had been laughing	will have been laughing

Verbs have to agree with their subjects in number.

In English grammar, number indicates a word is singular or plural. In English sentences, subjects and verbs must agree in number. Such agreement is typically called subject-verb agreement. So if the subject is singular, the verb must be singular or if the subject is plural, the verb must be plural.

Consider these sentences:

A. The boy eats his lunch.
B. The boys eat their lunch.
A. The dog barks at strangers.
B. The dogs bark at strangers.
A. The writer enjoys learning new words.
B. The writers enjoy learning new words.

In each pair of sentences the subjects and verbs agree in number.

Present Tense Verb Forms

All the “A” sentences have singular subjects and singular verbs, and all the “B” sentences have plural subjects and plural verbs.

Singular Subject and Verb	Plural Subject and Verb
A. The boy eats his lunch.	B. The boys eat their lunch.
A. The dog barks at strangers.	B. The dogs bark at strangers.
A. The writer enjoys learning new words.	B. The writers enjoy learning new words.

Pay attention to the information in the following table because you need to think about how subjects and third person, present tense verbs become plural.

Singular Forms for Nouns and Present Tense 3rd Person Verbs	Plural Forms for Nouns and Present Tense 3rd Person Verbs
Singular nouns have no –s.	Many nouns become plural by adding -s
Singular present tense verbs require the –s. The boy eats. The girl plays. The baby swims.	Plural present tense verbs are pluralized by removing the –s. The boys eat. The girls play. The babies swim.

The approach to the singular and plural forms for verbs seems to go against the rules regarding how words are made plural. Just be aware that the only time this odd occurrence happens is with singular and plural 3rd person present tense verbs. Singular 3rd person present tense verbs require an –s. Plural 3rd person present tense verbs DO NOT use –s.

Active and Passive Voice

In English grammar, voice shows whether the subject of a sentence is performing the action of the verb or receiving the action of the verb.

Active Voice. You create active voice by making sure the subject of your sentence performs the action of the verb. Look at the sentence below.

The tiny kitten ate half a can of cat food.

In this sentence, the subject, kitten, performs the action, ate.

Look at this next sentence.

The student took the book from the shelf.

In the above sentence, the subject, student, performs the action, took.

Passive Voice: In passive voice, rather than the subject performing the action of the verb, the subject receives the action of the verb.

The half can of food was eaten by the tiny kitten.

The book was taken from the shelf by the student.

In both of the above sentences, the subjects, can and book, are not performing the action of the verbs, was eaten and was taken. As you can see, the “half can of food” does not perform the action described by the verb.

Instead, the action, was eaten, is shifted to the end of the sentence to the noun, kitten, just in the same way the student is now the recipient of the action was taken.

In writing, you always want to make active voice your first choice. To recognize active and passive voice sentences, do the following:

Find the subject of the sentence
Find the main verb of the sentence
Examine the relationship between the subject and the main verb:

Does the subject perform the action of the main verb? If so, the sentence is in active voice.
Does the subject sit there while something else—named or unnamed—performs an action on it? If so, the sentence is in passive voice.

To change passive voice to active voice follow these three steps:

Delete the form of the to be verb.
Use an active verb form rather than the past participial verb form.
Make the object of the preposition and any words associated with the object of the preposition (but do not include the preposition) the subject of the sentence.

Read the sentences below.

A letter was written to his brother by Jamal. (Passive voice)

Delete the verb was.
Change written to wrote.
Change Jamal from being the object of the preposition to become the subject of the sentence.

Jamal wrote a letter to his brother. (Active voice)

As you work on writing, make sure you always know what voice you are using. You want to use an active voice as much as possible in your writing to make your writing more vigorous and energetic, but sometimes you will need to use passive voice.

One instance in which you might typically use passive voice occurs when you do not know who performed the action of the verb.

The gifts were left on the door step last night.

In addition, passive voice is acceptable to use when the actor is less important than the object receiving the action.

A cure for AIDS was discovered by the team of scientists.

TERMINAL PUNCTUATION

In English, terminal punctuation, also called stops and end marks, consists of the period, the exclamation mark, and the question mark. These three punctuation marks typically bring sentences to a logical close.

Use a period to end (1) declarative sentences, which state facts and opinions; (2) imperative sentences, which give commands and directions; (3) indirect questions; and (4) polite requests that are stated as questions.