# Verbs: are imperfect, pluperfect and so on verb tenses? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 14, 2013, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182 "2013-10-14T03:29:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/1 "2013-10-14T03:29:18Z")
I need a point of clarification about the term used for different types of verbs. If you’re having a discusssion about the differences between the imperfect, pluperfect, passé composé, and so on - are they verb tenses? or moods? or something else? ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/2 "2013-10-14T03:36:47Z")
In English tenses are present, past (perfect), future, pluperfect, etc. which generally distinguish the timing of things. Moods are indicative (the usual one), imperative (commands), and subjunctive (statements of wish or contrary to fact like “I wish I were younger”). And to complete things, there is active (I hit the ball) and passive voice (the ball was hit by me). ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/3 "2013-10-14T03:40:29Z")
thanks - that’s what I thought, but it’s been a while since I studied such things… ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/4 "2013-10-14T04:01:54Z")
You might be thinking of the term “aspect.” All the forms you mentioned are past tense, but differ in aspect. Aspect concerns the type of action of a verb, in the sense of whether it is completed, habitual, habitual then completed, etc. Traditionally, they are just called “tenses,” but, linguistically, those forms are a combination of tense and aspect. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/5 "2013-10-14T04:17:02Z")
Tenses: Present: I jump Present imperative(?): I am jumping Imperative: (You) Jump now! Past: I jumped Past perfect: I have jumped Pluperfect: I had jumped Future: I will jump Future perfect: I will have jumped. Subjunctive: If I were jumping. (note the use of “I were” - denotes hypotheticality). And probably several more that I forget from 50 years ago… ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/6 "2013-10-14T04:23:24Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Present imperative(?): I am jumping Present progressive ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/7 "2013-10-14T04:26:56Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Present progressive Aka “present continuous” (either name is fine, just wanted to put that in for completeness’ sake.) I’m not going to argue too much the point on the other ones. They’re not all strictly tenses, but a mixture of tense and aspect. They are commonly taught simply as “tenses.” But “subjunctive” and “imperative” are moods not tenses. I don’t even remember being taught them as tenses. Typically, these are what are taught as “tenses” in English: past/present/future each for the following: simple progressive/continuous perfect perfect progressive So, 12 “tenses.” This is a little confusing, as “tense” has a variety of meanings. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/8 "2013-10-14T05:42:44Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Tenses: > Past perfect: I have jumped > Pluperfect: I had jumped The former is just the perfect tense also called present perfect tense. Past perfect and pluperfect are the same. ---
**Author:** ![j\_sum1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@j\_sum1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j_sum1)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/9 "2013-10-14T06:06:04Z")
I would have been going to go jumping. I think English can make a mash of things. Useful in that it enables a skillful user to present nuances of meanings. I think that if we were to design a system from scratch we would end up with something simpler, more clinical and more mechanical. This would be followed by someone poetically corrupting the system for aesthetic reasons. This would be followed by whole groups of people adopting the structure into their speech and something irregular being accepted as a normal part of speech. This would be followed by groups of people hashing the language through ignorance, convenience or as part of expressing their identity. And we would be back to square one. My point is that although categorising tenses and other aspects of the language may have its uses, a rigorous systematic breakdown that covers all situations is probably not a helpful tool. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/10 "2013-10-14T06:55:30Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > But “subjunctive” and “imperative” are moods not tenses. I don’t even remember being taught them as tenses. Depending on the language, each of the modes can have one or more tenses; if there is only one, often only the name of the mode is used, rather than the whole thing. Sometimes this simplification is used where it should not, such as when I was taught the _Present du Conditionnel_ under the name “Conditionnel” - no, damnit, that mode has more than one tense! Sometimes, different languages have different modes and organize the tenses in different ways: I’ve just encountered a site which lists the “Condicional” mode for Spanish, but I’d never heard of such a thing and every other link in google’s first page of hits has no such thing, nor does DRAE, which leaves me wondering where the heck that first guy got his “grammer”. The tenses which are similar to the French _Conditionnel_, in Spanish are considered part of the Subjunctive. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/11 "2013-10-14T07:11:24Z")
I’m under the impression that linguists feel it’s best to think of (standard) English as really having just two tenses: present and past. It has four aspects: simple, progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive. It has two voices: active and passive. And it has various moods and modalities and so on. All of which can be combined as you like. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/12 "2013-10-14T07:55:34Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > . . . and subjunctive (statements of wish or contrary to fact like “I wish I were younger”). > [@md2000](#): > > Subjunctive: If I were jumping. (note the use of “I were” - denotes hypotheticality). Yes, in common parlance, but keep in mind that the term “subjunctive” in English is sloppily used to refer to two distinct things. A hypothetical conditional is just that, and, as such, is not really what is otherwise known as “subjunctive.” An example of a true subjunctive form is something like this: _The judge ordered that the comment **be** removed from the record._ The real subjunctive for _be_ is actually just _be_ (the base form of the verb–subjunctive has no “time” or person marking.) Contrary-to-fact (or hypothetical) is really not the same thing as subjunctive, but most people who deal with language accept the term “subjunctive” to refer to it anyway, so you’ll often see in grammar books. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/13 "2013-10-14T12:17:40Z")
Do you want the conventional answer or the actual answer? The former is based on the model of grammar as modeling a language as though it was a bastard version of Latin and, as such, it has the traditional tenses as described above. I am not an expert on this, but I will describe the situation as I understand it. First, and most important, is that English doesn’t have tenses, but describes temporal relations in various ways. The future, for example, can be described by using the modal “will”, but also the phrases “going to”, “about to”, “on the point of” and other possibilities. This is unlike Latin which has an inflected future. French uses both devices, an inflected future and an auxiliary “aller” (itself inflected). What English does have are two aspects, perfect and imperfect (or completed and not completed). The simple past always has perfective aspect. “I went” is definitively finished. Another aspect of this aspect has to do with whether the person is still alive. I have written papers in which I had to change, “X has shown…” to “X showed…” because X has died. You also use the second form when it happened a long time ago (for some value of “long”) since the compound form suggests continuing work. So the compound past is imperfect. When translating French to English, the French compound past, which is perfective, will usually be translated by the simple past and the imperfect by the compound past. The uncommon simple past in French is also perfective. The “present” in English really has no tense. It usually has perfective aspect, although not always. It all depends on what goes with it. English does have a nearly moribund subjunctive. It appears to be completely dead in England. In a book I coauthored that was published in London, the copy editor asked to change several dozen subjunctives, thinking we had incorrectly used a third person plural instead of a singular. We explained it to him/her and s/he accepted our explanation. Then there is the “progressive” aspect which is either continuative or iterative. I leave you to google those terms for more details if you are interested. ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/14 "2013-10-14T15:28:30Z")
“Tense” usually refers to the marking on a verb for time. In English, there are really two basic tenses: present/nonpast (e.g., _go_), and past (_went_). There are ways of marking time for finely— for example, the future _will go_ and pluperfect (_had gone_)— but they’re compound tenses rather than single forms of the verb. There’s also not quite a one-to-one mapping between grammatical tenses and semantic tenses: for example, “Tomorrow I return to prison” or “Every Friday I take the bus.” In languages in general, verbs can be marked for many different things: number (e.g., _go_ versus _goes_), person (French _je vais_ versus _tu vas_), modality (_can go_, _should go_), reality (something like _if I were to go_), aspect (_am going_ versus _go_), and so on. There are also categories like gnomic verbs to make abstract, general statements (_Frogs are green_) that English doesn’t have separate forms for; we just use the present tense. Tense specifically refers to the distinction of when the action in question took place, but it’s sometimes to used to refer the form the verb takes a whole, including all the various markings. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/15 "2013-10-14T16:07:27Z")
> [@j\_sum1](#): > > I think that if we were to design a system from scratch we would end up with something simpler, more clinical and more mechanical. Can I interest you in a sample of lojban? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/16 "2013-10-14T17:50:52Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Can I interest you in a sample of lojban? I doubt it. You are not interesting me now and I do not believe that embedding yourself in lojban would make a meaningful difference. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/17 "2013-10-14T18:00:58Z")
[mandatory tense joke] > [@](#): > > A traveller who is a huge fan of seafood arrives in Boston for the first time. He leaves the airport and hails a cab. After he gets in, he excitedly says to the cabbie, “Hey, I’m new in town. Can you tell me a good place to go to get scrod?” The cabbie replies [in a thick Boston accent], “Pal, I’ve got to congratulate you. I’ve heard that question a lot over the years, but that’s the first time I’ve ever heard it in the pluperfect subjunctive.” [/mandatory tense joke] ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/18 "2013-10-14T19:06:48Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Typically, these are what are taught as “tenses” in English: > > past/present/future each for the following: > > simple > progressive/continuous > perfect > perfect progressive > > So, 12 “tenses.” This is a little confusing, as “tense” has a variety of meanings. So: simple present: “I jump.” simple past: “I jumped.” simple future: “I will jump.” present progressive: “I am jumping.” past progressive: “I was jumping.” future progressive: “I will be jumping.” present perfect: “I have jumped.” past perfect: “I had jumped.” future perfect: “I will have jumped.” present perfect progressive: “I have been jumping.” past perfect progressive: “I had been jumping.” future perfect progressive: “I will have been jumping.” Did I do that right? Also, what about: “I am going to be jumping.” Does that have a name? And what about “I used to jump.” Is that imperfect? In high school I was taught imperfect, pluperfect, etc. in Latin class, but never in English class. I guess it wasn’t considered important that we understand the grammar of our native language? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/19 "2013-10-14T19:27:35Z")
If I can piggyback on this thread rather than wasting space with another… A long time ago, I heard this joke: A businessman was told that if he ever got to Boston, he had to order the local delicacy broiled scrod in a restaurant. So when he found himself in Beantown and hungry, he jumped in a cab and asked the driver, “Hey, where can I get scrod around here?” The driver, a down-on-his-luck Harvard grad, replied, “Wow, I’ve heard that question a lot, but never in the pluperfect subjunctive.” Okay, so scrod is a real fish and might be on a Boston menu, and the joke is funny in pretty much any case… but can “scrod” be accurately called the pluperfect subjunctive of “screw”? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182/20 "2013-10-14T19:40:36Z")
Only if scrod can be the past participle of screw. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/verbs-are-imperfect-pluperfect-and-so-on-verb-tenses/671182.md?page=2)