Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The verb go is an irregular verb in the English language (see English irregular verbs). It has a wide range of uses; its basic meaning is "to move from one place to another". Apart from the copular verb be, the verb go is the only English verb to have a suppletive past tense, namely went.
This is followed by the simple past tense , and then the past participle. If there are irregular present tense forms (see below), these are given in parentheses after the infinitive. (The present participle and gerund forms of verbs, ending in -ing, are always regular. In English, these are used as verbs, adjectives, and nouns.)
Two verbs (be and go) that contain suppletive forms, i.e. one or more of their parts came from an entirely different root. With go this applies to the past tense went, which is originally from the verb wend. With be it applies to a number of different forms (see below). For details, see Indo-European copula (for be) and the article on the verb go.
However other state verbs use the present progressive or present simple depending on whether the state is considered temporary or permanent: The pen is lying on the table; Paris lies on the Seine. For past actions or states, the simple past is generally used: He went out an hour ago; Columbus knew the shape of the world.
Many English verbs exhibit subject agreement of the following sort: whereas I go, you go, we go, they go are all grammatical in standard English, he go is not (except in the subjunctive, as "They requested that he go with them"). Instead, a special form of the verb to go has to be used to produce he goes.
Once again, figure skaters representing the past, present and future of the sport perished in a catastrophic plane crash – devastating a global community far too familiar with tragedy. No one ...
The choice of present perfect or past tense depends on the frame of reference (period or point in time) in which the event is conceived as occurring. If the frame of reference extends to the present time, the present perfect is used. For example: I have written a letter this morning. (if it is still the morning) He has produced ten plays.
This has happened in the case of the English word went, which was originally the past tense of wend, but has come to be used instead as the past tense of go. The verb be also has a number of suppletive forms (be, is, was, etc., with various different origins) – this is common for copular verbs in Indo-European languages.