MEANING * FORM * AUXILIARIES * LEXICAL ASPECT * MORE PRACTICE
A. Look at the verbs in this biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. How many verbs of each kind do you find? (Ignore the verbs with modal auxiliaries .. can / may / must , etc .... for now.) (If you click on this link and hold until the menu appears, you can choose "new window .. or new browser .. with this link", and have both windows open. Then you can adjust them so that part of each is always visible, and you can easily move back and forth between them.)
After you look at the verbs in the King biography, consider these questions:
B. Now look at the verbs in a brief biography of Bill Clinton. (Sorry, the original article referred to here, written for the 1997 Inauguration, is no longer available online.) Compare these with the verbs in the Martin Luther King biography. Do you expect to find any differences? Click here for a brief discussion after you finish.
II. Now try your hand at choosing appropriate verb tenses in this article about the history of Martin Luther King Day.
III. Try the same thing with another article of your choosing, especially one about the history of a holiday or regular cultural observance.
DISCUSSION OF THE VERBS IN THE KING BIOGRAPHY: As you have noticed, all but two verbs near the end are in the simple past tense. TIME (past): The author only writes about events in the life of Dr. King, who died before the biography was written. It would have been possible for the author to refer occfasionally to general truths as a kind of background to the story, which would have been in the present tense, but he didn't. He also didn't write at all about present-day effects of Dr.King's life or ideas, or implications for the future. Since he only wrote about events that took place before he was writing, he used only verbs in the past. ASPECT (mostly simple): For most of the biography, the events in Dr. King's life are told in the order in which they happened. There is no need for a perfect tense until near the end of the biography, when we find two past perfect verbs: had not been addressed and had lost. They both stop, in effect, to look back at what had happened (or not happened) earlier. When discussing the 1968 campaign, the author mentions the failures of earlier reforms. And in disussing King's criticism of the Vietnam War in 1967, he summarizes the situation by stating that the process of losing support, which had begun earlier, was complete by then. It is fairly common for narratives in the past tense to end with some general summaries (looking back, in effect) in the past perfect. The author treats each event separately as he describes it. He doesn't use any progressive verbs to stress duration or the "interruption" of events by other events.
DISCUSSION OF THE VERBS IN THE CLINTON BIOGRAPHY: TIME (past, then present): This biography has two main time frames. Like the King biography, it begins with verbs in the past tense. The first paragraph concerns Clinton's 1993 inauguration (four years in the past). Then the author starts back at the beginning of Clinton's life and describes his education and life in Arkansas, before he became President (and therefore, all in the past). However, unlike Dr. King, President Clinton is still living. This biography ends with information about his PRESENT life, as President, using present tense verbs. As part of this description, however, there is one reference to a past event (their 1996 anniversary) This shift is clearly marked by the date. ASPECT (mostly simple): As with Dr. King's biography, these are separate events told in the order in which they happened. (The one exception to this is the fact that the 1993 inauguration comes first, and thus out of order, but this serves as a kind of introduction. There is a clear shift from that one event to the beginning of the main "story", and no need for a perfect tense.) The shift from the past to the present tense is accomplished with a verb in the present perfect tense (has served), followed by a list of positions held at times not mentioned. Then Clinton's present family situation is described with simple-present-tense verbs (with ne detail added, in the simple past tense). As in the King biography, there are no progressive verbs.
Ann Salzmann Intensive English Institute University of Illinois