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The simple present, present simple or present indefinite is one of the verb forms associated with the present tense in modern English. It is commonly referred to as a tense, although it also encodes certain information about aspect in addition to the present time. The simple present is the most commonly used verb form in English, accounting for ...
The principal uses of the simple present are given below. More examples can be found in the article Simple present. To refer to an action or event that takes place habitually. Such uses are often accompanied by frequency adverbs and adverbial phrases such as always, often, from time to time and never. Examples: I always take a shower.
It can serve as a simple adjective: It is a thrilling book. The same form used as a gerund has the following uses: It forms verbal phrases that are then used as nouns: Lying in bed is my favorite hobby. It forms similar phrases used as a complement of certain verbs: He tried writing novels.
A number of multi-word constructions exist to express the combinations of present tense with the basic form of the present tense is called the simple present; there are also constructions known as the present progressive (or present continuous) (e.g. am writing), the present perfect (e.g. have written), and the present perfect progressive (e.g ...
phrases formed by the determiner the with an adjective, as in the homeless, the English (these are plural phrases referring to homeless people or English people in general); phrases with a pronoun rather than a noun as the head (see below); phrases consisting just of a possessive; infinitive and gerund phrases, in certain positions;
In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how a verbal action, event, or state, extends over time. For instance, perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to any flow of time during the event ("I helped him").
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French is an example of a language where, as in German, the simple morphological perfective past (passé simple) has mostly given way to a compound form (passé composé). Irish, a Celtic language, has past, present and future tenses (see Irish conjugation). The past contrasts perfective and imperfective aspect, and some verbs retain such a ...