English verb forms are the inflections used to indicate the tense of the word. In addition to the tense, some verbs may also be marked for aspects. For instance, there are two types of past forms: simple and past participle. Some verbs will remain the same in the simple form, while others will change to a past participle.
Simple tenses, also called simple present tense, indicate actions that took place at a point in time. They can be marked for simple, non-progressive, or perfect aspect. A verb can also be marked for modal information, such as future and conditional.
Infinitives express plain facts. They are not conjugated in the same way that other verbs are. These tenses are sometimes used for indirect speech or in situations where it is unclear what form to use.
Perfect tenses denote actions completed before the current time. In addition to the perfect tense, there are other forms of the verb, including the present perfect, the perfect continuous, and the past perfect. Often, the present perfect is similar to the simple past tense. However, there are exceptions.
Passive constructions can be awkward, so they can be paraphrased. The perfect aspect is also marked on the infinitive. There are also passive forms of progressive aspect. Those include the future perfect progressive, the conditional perfect progressive, and the past perfect progressive.
A verb’s root form is the basic form of the word. It is the form that is most commonly found in dictionaries. All other forms are formed from the base form.
