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Welcome to this video tutorial on sequence of tenses
Everyday we are talking, arguing, discussing, writing, and giving speeches that will later
be talked about…
During the Gettysburg address in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said,
“The world will not remember what we say here.”
…IT DID! …and that’s why we’re reporting it today!
When we report what someone said to someone else,
we use quotation marks
and give the exact words, in the same tense, that came from the speaker’s mouth…
However, when we repeat…or report that message
that the original person said to someone else , we do not use quotation marks
and shift the verb tenses to the past… Let’s look at that same sentence again,
The main verb, “said,” is in the past tense because we are talking about a past
event
…and are using the exact words that we heard.
When we "report" that same sentence note that it now becomes a noun clause answering the
question of what lincoln said. Lincoln said "something"...what did he say? (The introductory
word "that" is optional) We are reporting what he said in the past.
Notice that the exact words Lincoln said, "The world WILL not remember..." is something
that has now started in the past for us and yet continues...
...and the thing that the world would not remember is what was said originally back in Lincoln's
day.
Here is another sentence Lincoln made in that speech about the memory of the world to come...
Notice that it is a quotation with the reporting verb "said"
In the reported speech the "cannot" changes to "could not" and the "fought" changes to
"had fought"
Both of these actions are "past" to us now...but still need to be shown in relationship to
the time that Lincoln said the words...
"Cannot not forget" would be something that would happen after his speech (becoming "could
not" since it is past to us now)...
...and the mention of "the soldiers who fought" happened before his speech...thus the past
perfect tense.
Let's look at this in terms of a quotation about a future event...
The sentence from the professor, "I will correct your homework tonight." is something that
is being said at the moment; however,
The next day, if you ask me what the professor said (in other words, wanted me to report
to you about it...)
...we would be talking about "yesterday"... Let's see how the verb in that original quotation
"will correct" and the reference to "tonight" pan out...
Remember...everything "shifts" to something that was now said "yesterday" in relationship
to the report being given "now."
First of all, something was "said" yesterday
...and the "will correct" now becomes "would correct" in relationship to the event of saying
it... The reference to "tonight" is no longer true
and we need to shift that time to "last night" since it is already past.
Here is another case of a future reference...
When this information is being reported, you have a choice of keeping the original verb
tense of "will" or...
...changing it to the past "reported" tense of "would."
Now let's look at some of the basic principles of making this shift...
We must change the quoted verb tense to the past form...
That is because we are talking about something that has happened in the past...
"Past" tense, however, can actually mean "one step back" as we will see in the next few
slides. That is why we call this a "sequence" of tenses...
The tense shifts from the original form in the quoted speech to...
...one step back in the past to the "reported" form.
With the original quotation of "I watch TV everyday."
...we would report it that he WATCHED TV everyday. (One steop back)
"Am" watching would become "was" watching...
"Have watched" would become
"had watched" "watched" would become "had watched" (again
notice the "one step back" shifiting)
However, "had watched" stays the same because we are at the end of the past tense sequence
in English
"will watch" becomes "would watch"
and "am going to watch" becomes "was going to watch"
For most modals we can shift it back to the past tense form of the modal..."can" becomes
"could"
"may" becomes "might"
"must" becomes "had to" (since there is no past tense form of "must"
"have to" becomes "had to"
For some modals there are exceptions, meaning there are no changes such as "should"
"ought to"
and "might" There are times when we didn't quite catch
what the speaker was saying and we need a friend to give us an "immediate" report.
In these cases, we should stick to the same verb tense that the speaker used. In this
case the professor probably said, "I want you to submit your outlines tomorrow."
So our classmate repeats to us that he (the professor) wants us to submit them tomorrow.
When the time between the actual quote and the report becomes longer,
it is here that we would shift the sequence to the past tense...
There are times when someone is talking about a "general truth"
...and in these cases we DO NOT shift the tense...in other words, it is ALWAYS true!
Sometimes the reporting verb, (or the verb that is used prior to the quotation), is in
another tense other than the typical past tense such as "He said..." "She said..."
When someone uses the "present tense" meaning that this person says it all the time...we
keep the original verb tense in the reported speech.
This is also true with the present perfect tense because it was said in the past and
continues to be true.
..and in the future it happens as well.
An imperative sentence is a little bit trickier, because it is a "command" to do something,
requiering an infinitive for the reported verb form
Here "write" becomes "to write"
Finally, here is a chart to help you visually with the shifting of verb tense when reporting
information...
When the main reporting verb is in the past tense, such as
The mother said, "Children watch too much TV."
We "shift" the verb in the reported speech "watch" to
"watched"
If the verb is some form of the present progressive "be wathcing"...
It shifts to
was watching
A present perfect tense in the main clause...
...shifts one place back to
past perfect...
One exception would be if the main verb in the that clause is past tense…
It would shift to the past perfect tense )
(We would not use the present perfect tense mainly because it includes the meaning of
something happening that is related to or includes the meaning of the present)…
If the main verb in the reported clause is past perfect
It remains the same as there is no other shift backwards from that point!
When we talk about the future tense in the reported clause, we are really talking about
a modal with the present tense “will”
“Will” then shifts back to the past tense form of “will “ or “would”
The future can also be expressed in the reported clause as “be going to” )
…which will then be shifted back to “was going to” )
or “were going to” depending on the subject of the verb.
Thanks for watching...