She was in Berlin (preterite, imperfective, past)
She is in Berlin (present tense, imperfective, present)
Past and present time relate to the time of utterance
Usually past time is understood as time preceding the time of speaking and present time is time simultaneous with it.
“Present” is the time that coincides with the time of utterance
I promise to phone you (perfective, simple act of uttering this sentence, brief period)
Tricia mows the lawn (imperfective, takes longer than the few seconds of the utterance “now”)
Tricia is mowing the lawn (imperfective, progressive, point within the total mowing)
“Present time” must capture a brief situation as a whole, for the utterance “now”.
If it’s not brief, it must be imperfective. The situation holds at the time of speaking but began before then and may continue after it.
Important
Perfective interpretations of present tense clauses with present time reference are restricted to situations of very short duration
We have present knowledge of a future event
The present tense is often used for situations located in future time:
The next high tide is [at 4 o’clock] (calculated time)
The sun rises tomorrow [at 6.10 a.m.] (calculated time)
The course starts [next Thursday] (scheduled)
We arrive home [two days before Easter] (scheduled)
This construction is called the futurate, usually specified by a time adjunct.
Two common cases:
Recurrent events in nature whose time can be calculated
Arranged or scheduled in advanced
See also
Without the calculated/scheduled restriction, present tense can reference future time in subordinate clauses. The future context is already provided with the conditional conjunctions (if, in case, provided, unless etc) and the inherited temporal anchor from the matrix clause.
All the following underlying verbs are in present tense but clearly make future time reference:
Please, bring the washing in if [it rains] (complement inside a conditional modifier)
I’ll give it to you before [I leave] (complement inside a temporal modifier)
I hope [you enjoy your stay] (complement of the VP headed by “hope”)
Note
In certain types of narrative, especially in informal style, the present tense is used instead of the preterite for past time events, even in discourses that have begun in the preterite. It’s called “the historic present”.
I was waiting at the bus-stop in the rain when this guy drives up in a BMW and offers me a ride, so I say ‘Well, I don’t know’, but he says ‘Come on, you can trust me, I’m a grammarian’, so I get in, and off we go…
The central use of the preterite is to locate the situation, or the part of it under consideration, in past time.
I promised to phone her. (perfective)
Tricia mowed the lawn. (imperfective or perfective)
A promise made in the past is clearly perfective. But we don’t know if Tricia completed the mowing, so it can be both, and used for a single long act of mowing located in the past.
Note
In the past there is no constrain for perfective to be short duration. The past is not constrained to the utterance’s now as the present.
Modality, not time
There is a second important use of the preterite where the meaning has to do not with time but with modality.
The modal preterite is used to present the situation as, in varying degrees, modally remote from the actual world
I’m glad she lives nearby (present tense, glad - so they live nearby)
I wish she lived nearby (modal preterite, “wish”, interpreted counterfactually)
Note
Definitely not corresponding to the real world.
A tensed complement in a “wish” VP has to have a modal preterite, we can’t replace it with a present tense (e.g. here “lives”)
I hope she arrives tomorrow
I’d rather she arrived tomorrow (modal preterite, suggests)
It doesn’t imply that she definitely won’t arrive, it suggests that it may well be that she won’t.
Note
For some speakers the modal preterite is obligatory in a tensed complement after would rather, whereas for others a subjunctive clause would be a possible variant
I’d rather she arrive tomorrow
Note
“would rather” is a preference construction, but even with “prefer”, if the subordinate used modal preterite then the matrix should use the “would” modal preterite
I would prefer that she arrived tomorrow (more remote, tentative, distance the speaker)
I prefer she arrive tomorrow (direct)
Either modal preterite in both matrix and subordinate, or none.
The grammar allows a choice between present tense and modal preterite, which contrast in meaning.
If he loves her, he’ll change (open)
If he loved her, he’d change (remote, readiness to believe that he doesn’t love her. Note again the modal pairing of if + modal preterite with would + plain form)
If I leave now, I’ll miss the traffic (open)
If I left now, I would miss the traffic (remote. presents my leaving now as somewhat less likely)
The open type characteristically leaves it open as to whether the condition is or will be fulfilled: he may love her, or he may not; I may leave now, or I may not.
The remote type, by contrast, generally presents the fulfilment of the condition as a more remote possibility.
Reported speech or related environments
Dee has a great voice
I told Ira that Dee had a great voice
Here backshift is optional:
I told Ira that Dee has a great voice (grammatical, indirect report non-backshifted)
Note
The second sentence resembles ordinary past time: “told”, and the subordinate prevail same time.
In other cases, backshift may be obligatory.
Dee has a great idea.
I told Ira that Dee had a great idea. (non-backshifted has would not be possible here)
The difference is that having a great voice is an enduring state while a having a great idea is normally of relatively short duration.
Important
The backshifted version is always possible: it looks at the situation described in the subordinate clause from the perspective of the original utterance.
The non-backshifted version looks at it from the perspective of my report, and is acceptable only if the change in perspective does not affect the temporal relations.
The underlying temporal relationship is roughly:
I thought [last week] that the course [is next week].
So thought can be a modal preterite, but is most naturally it’s a past time preterite
Backshift also happens quite generally in constructions where one clause is embedded:
Ira didn’t know [that Dee had a great voice]. (non-backshifted “has” is possible)
I wondered at the time [whether they were genuine].
Distinctive use of backshift preterite (not resembling simple past, see above with “told”):
I thought the course started next week. (started does not locate the starting in past time, the - potential - starting is in the future)
I thought the course starts next week(thought should trigger backshift)
I wish I knew if these paintings were genuine.(“I wish” places the proposition in a remote context, so “knew” is a modal preterite, and were does not refer to past time: the issue is whether the paintings are genuine now)
I wish I knew if these paintings are genuine.(backshift is required, triggered by the preterite knew)
Important
When backshift is obligatory?
temporal adjunct bounds the subordinate state itself to a closed past period:
She said that the museum was closed yesterday (becomes mandatory)
“Yesterday” modifies the reporting verb (“said”), placing the speech event in the past:
She said yesterday that the museum is closed (works—provided the museum is still closed, or normally closed, at the moment of speaking, “is” signals that the closure remains true)
“Is” signals the utterance “now”, not “the present when she spoke”. This is exactly where we need backshift.
English, uses an absolute tense system for primary verbs in indirect speech. The deictic center (the anchor point for “now”) is strictly the current speaker’s moment of utterance.
The museum is closed.
She said yesterday that the museum is closed.
If the museum was closed only yesterday and has reopened today, using is would be false, making backshift mandatory
She said yesterday that the museum was closed.
Non-backshifted forms are only permissible when the subordinate proposition remains open or true at speech time:
She said that London is expensive. (London is still expensive)
Important
Primary tense is anchored to the speaker’s current moment of utterance (“now”), not the past moment of reporting.
Note
To place the entire proposition in the past, we need past perfect.
“had been genuine” is the unambiguous way to put the paintings’ genuineness before the past wishing/knowing reference point:
I wished I knew whether these paintings had been genuine.
This may fit to a discourse like:
The gallery had sold the paintings years earlier, and there were rumours that they were forgeries. I wished I knew whether these paintings had been genuine.
preterite form ≠ past-time meaning
Preterite form is morphologically ambiguous between temporal and modal uses. The form itself does not encode which interpretation is intended.
The construction and context determine the interpretation.
I knew the answer. (past-time preterite)
I wish I knew the answer. (modal preterite)
If I knew the answer, I would tell you. (modal preterite)
I thought she knew the answer. (knew is normally backshifted, not independently past-time)
Note
The backshifted preterite does not necessarily place the proposition in time:
Yesterday I thought she knew the answer, and she still knows it today.
The subordinate situation extends to the present.
We need both context and construction:
I wish I knew the answer.
“wish” selects/licenses a finite content clause.
The preterite “knew” is licensed in that construction as a marker of modal remoteness.
The fact that knew is interpreted as modal rather than past-time comes from the interaction of the construction with context/meaning.
Note
Some environments make one interpretation strongly preferred or effectively obligatory, but that is still because of the construction/context, not because the preterite morphology itself distinguishes the two.
The preterite for tells you only: This is a remote (non-open) situation.
It does not tell you whether the imagined event is:
Now
Later today
Tomorrow,
Next week
The context supplies that.
It would be better if she went to bed. (if it’s 11:00 pm, this interprets like present, immediate future)
It would be better if she went to bed early tomorrow night. (she should go to bed tomorrow, future)
Context tools:
Temporal adverbials (tomorrow, next week, yesterday),
The lexical meaning of the verb
The surrounding discourse
Sentence |
Time Reference |
Why? |
|---|---|---|
If I knew the answer, I’d tell you. |
Present |
“know” and “tell” are about the current situation. |
If it rained tomorrow, we’d stay home. |
Future |
“tomorrow” fixes the time. |
I’d rather she arrived next week. |
Future |
“next week” fixes the time. |
It would be better if she went to bed. |
Present or near future |
Context determines the intended time. |
Important
We know one thing for sure: This is non-past.
“would” is modal. Past event can’t be hypothetical: Once she had gone to bed, saying “it would be better” doesn’t make any sense.
It would have been better if she went to bed yesterday
To locate this hypothetical environment in the past, we need the perfect:
It would have been better if she had gone to bed yesterday.
The preterite is the inflectional tense of the finite verb (or auxiliary):
wrote → preterite
was writing → was is preterite
had written → had is preterite
The preterite tense is the inflectional past tense of the finite verb.
It locates the situation before the time of speaking (or another reference point, depending on context) and is marked by the preterite form of the finite verb.
Sentence |
Finite verb |
Preterite form |
|---|---|---|
She wrote a novel. |
wrote |
✓ |
She was writing a novel. |
was |
✓ |
She had written a novel. |
had |
✓ |
They left early. |
left |
✓ |
Note
Preterite tense is not past simple.
Sentence |
Preterite tense? |
Past simple? |
|---|---|---|
She wrote a novel. |
✓ |
✓ |
She was writing a novel. |
✓ |
✗ (past progressive) |
She had written a novel. |
✓ (on had) |
✗ (past perfect) |
She was happy. |
✓ |
✓ |
Past simple is the simple (non-perfect, non-progressive) construction with preterite tense.