The simple past, past simple or past indefinite, sometimes called the preterite, is the basic form of the

past tense The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some ha ...

in Modern English. It is used principally to describe events in the past, although it also has some other uses. Regular English verbs form the simple past in ''-ed''; however, there are a few hundred irregular verbs with different forms. The term "

simple Simple or SIMPLE may refer to: *Simplicity, the state or quality of being simple Arts and entertainment * ''Simple'' (album), by Andy Yorke, 2008, and its title track * "Simple" (Florida Georgia Line song), 2018 * "Simple", a song by Johnn ...

" is used to distinguish the syntactical construction whose basic form uses the plain past tense alone, from other past tense constructions which use auxiliaries in combination with participles, such as the

past perfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...

and

past progressive This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes: * Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went'' * Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone'' * Combinations of s ...

Formation

Regular verbs form the simple past end''-ed''; however there are a few hundred irregular verbs with different forms. The spelling rules for forming the past simple of regular verbs are as follows: verbs ending in -e add only –d to the end (e.g. live – lived, not *liveed), verbs ending in -y change to -ied (e.g. study – studied) and verbs ending in a group of a consonant + a vowel + a consonant double the final consonant (e.g. stop – stopped). For details see . Most verbs have a single form of the simple past, independent of the

person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...

of the subject (there is no addition of ''-s'' for the third person singular as in the

simple present The simple present, present simple or present indefinite is one of the verb forms associated with the present tense in modern English. It is commonly referred to as a tense, although it also encodes certain information about aspect in addition ...

). However, the

copula verb In linguistics, a copula (plural: copulas or copulae; list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word or phrase that links the subject (grammar), subject of a sentence (linguistics), sentence to a subject complement, such as the word '' ...

''be'' has two past tense forms: ''was'' for the first and third persons singular, and ''were'' in other instances. The form ''were'' can also be used in place of ''was'' in conditional clauses and the like; for information on this, see

English subjunctive While the English language lacks distinct inflections for Grammatical mood, mood, an English subjunctive is recognized in most History of English grammars, grammars. Definition and scope of the concept vary widely across the literature, but it is ...

. This is the only case in modern English where a distinction in form is made between

inversion Inversion or inversions may refer to: Arts * , a French gay magazine (1924/1925) * ''Inversion'' (artwork), a 2005 temporary sculpture in Houston, Texas * Inversion (music), a term with various meanings in music theory and musical set theory * ...

, negations with ''not'', and emphatic forms of the simple past use the auxiliary ''did''. For details of this mechanism, see ''do''-support. A full list of forms is given below, using the (regular) verb ''help'' as an example: *Basic simple past: **I/you/he/she/it/we/they helped *Expanded (emphatic) simple past: **I/you/he/she/it/we/they did help *Question form: **Did I/you/he/she/it/we/they help? *Negative: **I/you/he/she/it/we/they did not (didn't) help *Negative question: **Did I/you/he/she/it/we/they not help? / Didn't I/you/he/she/it/we/they help? Base form Affirmative (+) S + verb(ed) + c Negative (-) S + did not ( didn't) + verb + C

Usage

The simple past is used for a single event (or sequence of such events) in the past, and also for past habitual actions: ::He took the money and ran. ::I visited them every day for a year. It can also refer to a past state: ::I knew how to fight even as a child. For actions that were ongoing at the time referred to, the

is generally used instead (e.g. ''I was cooking''). The same can apply to states, if temporary (e.g. ''the ball was lying on the sidewalk''), but some stative verbs do not generally use the progressive aspect at all, typically verbs of mental states (know, believe, need), of emotional states (love, dislike, prefer), of possession (have, own), of senses (hear) and some others (consist, exist, promise) – see – and in these cases the simple past is used even for a temporary state: ::The dog was in its kennel. ::I felt cold. However, with verbs of sensing, it is common in such circumstances to use ''could see'' in place of ''saw'', ''could hear'' in place of ''heard'', etc. For more on this, see ''

can see This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes: * Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went'' * non-finite verb, Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone'' * C ...

''. If one action interrupts another, then it is usual for the interrupted (ongoing) action to be expressed with the past progressive, and the action that interrupted it to be in the simple past: ::Your mother called while you ''were cooking''. The simple past is often close in meaning to the

present perfect The present perfect is a grammatical combination of the present tense and perfect aspect that is used to express a past event that has present consequences. The term is used particularly in the context of English grammar to refer to forms like " ...

. The simple past is used when the event happened at a particular time in the past, or during a period which ended in the past (i.e. a period that does not last up until the present time). This time frame may be explicitly stated, or implicit in the context (for example the past tense is often used when describing a sequence of past events). ::I was born in 1980. ::We turned the oven off two minutes ago. ::I came home at 6 o'clock. ::When did they get married? ::We wrote two letters this morning. ::She placed the letter on the table, sighed, and left the house. These examples can be contrasted with those given at . Also, for past actions that occurred ''before'' the relevant past time frame, the

is used. Various compound constructions exist for denoting past habitual action. The sentence ''When I was young, I played football every Saturday'' might alternatively be phrased using ''

used to The habitual aspect is a form of expression connoting repetition or continuous existence of a state of affairs. In standard English, for the present time there is no special grammatical marker for the habitual; the simple present is used, as in '' ...

'' (''... I used to play ...'') or using ''

would The English modal verbs are a subset of the English auxiliary verbs used mostly to express modality (properties such as possibility, obligation, etc.). They can be distinguished from other verbs by their defectiveness (they do not have participle ...

'' (''... I would play...''). The simple past form also has some uses in which it does not refer to a past time. These are generally in

condition clause Conditional sentences are natural language sentences that express that one thing is contingent on something else, e.g. "If it rains, the picnic will be cancelled." They are so called because the impact of the main clause of the sentence is ''c ...

s and some other dependent clauses referring to hypothetical circumstances, as well as certain expressions of wish: :: If he walked faster, he would get home earlier. :: I wish I knew what his name was. :: I would rather she wore a longer dress. For more details see the sections on

conditionals Conditional (if then) may refer to: *Causal conditional, if X then Y, where X is a cause of Y *Conditional probability, the probability of an event A given that another event B has occurred *Conditional proof, in logic: a proof that asserts a co ...

dependent clauses A dependant is a person who relies on another as a primary source of income. A common-law marriage, common-law spouse who is financially supported by their partner may also be included in this definition. In some jurisdictions, supporting a ...

and expressions of wish in the article on uses of English verb forms. For use of the simple past (and other past tense forms) in indirect speech, see {{slink, Uses of English verb forms, Indirect speech. An example: ::He said he wanted to go on the slide.

Pronunciation of -ed

The regular verbs ending with -ed are pronounced as follows: * Regular verb endings with voiced consonants+/d/, e.g. ''hugged'' /hʌɡd/. * Regular verb endings with unvoiced consonants+/t/, e.g. ''stopped'' /stɒpt/. * Regular verb endings with /t/ or /d/ + /ɪd/, e.g. ''needed'' /niːdɪd/.

References

*iStudyEnglishOnline (2015)
Past Simple Uses & Explanations
Archived fro
the original
on August 14, 2015. Grammatical tenses

Formation

Usage

Pronunciation of -ed

See also

References