1 a present tense: is, ‘m (am), have … been living, is, talk, think, ‘m (am) past tense: was introduced, had been, made, moved

b is, ‘m (am), talk, think = present simple

have … been living = present perfect progressive

was introduced = past simple passive

made, moved = past simple

had been = past perfect simple

Note that forms like have been living and had been are classified as present and past tenses respectively, on the basis of the tense of their first auxiliary. The fact that they have added aspectual meaning (to be discussed in the next unit) does not affect their membership of one of the two tense categories in English.

2 a

b past tense; past time reference

c present tense: future time reference

d present tense; present time reference (where the notion of ‘presentness’ is extended in time)

e present tense; present time reference (again, where this is extended)

f present tense; past time reference

g past tense; possibly present time reference, i.e. ‘Did you want it now?’

h past tense; present time reference, i.e. ‘if only I was 60 kilos lighter now’

i past tense; present time reference, assuming her actual words were I earn $460 a week … .

j present tense; past time reference

k present tense; possibly past time reference

2 b The exercise demonstrates that there is not a one-to-one relationship between (notional) time and (grammatical) tense. That is to say, an event that happened in the past or that will happen in the future can be expressed by a present tense verb; likewise a past tense verb can express a present event. Nevertheless, and despite the lack of a strict one-to-one match between (notional) time and (grammatical) tense, it is generally the case that (in the words of Carter and McCarthy 2006) ‘present tenses are mostly concerned with talking about present time, and past tenses are mostly concerned with talking about past time’.

3 All the present tense verbs express the idea of nearness or ‘actuality’, and all the past tense verbs express distance or ‘remoteness’. This nearness versus distance distinction may be one of time (immediacy versus time disconnected from now), or it may be in terms of reality (real versus unreal), or it may be in terms of social distance (informal versus formal).