The simple present of the verb To Be

A conjugation of a verb is a list showing the different forms a verb may take. When a verb is conjugated, it is usually accompanied by all of the personal pronouns which can act as subjects of a verb. Thus, a conjugation can show the different forms a verb must take when it is used with different subjects.

The English personal pronouns which may be used as subjects of verbs are as follows:

I

you

he

she

it

we

they

It should be noted that in modern English, the same verb forms are used with the subject you, whether you refers to one or more than one person or thing. In an older form of English, there was another personal pronoun, thou, which was used with different verb forms, and which generally referred to one person or thing.

The Simple Present of the verb to be is conjugated as follows. In spoken English, contractions are often used.

Uses of the simple present tense

The Simple Present is one of four present tenses in English, and is used in various ways. In the examples given below, the verbs in the Simple Present tense are underlined.

For instance, the Simple Present can be used to refer to actions which occur at regular intervals.

e.g. We visit our friends every Sunday.

They take a holiday once a year.

Geese fly south every fall.

The Simple Present is also used in stating general truths.

e.g. Gas expands when heated.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world.

Canada lies north of the United States.

In addition, the Simple Present is used when referring to printed material, and when describing events portrayed in a book, film, or other work of art.

e.g. The report presents the information clearly.

At the end of the film , the hero finds the hidden treasure.

Occasionally, the Simple Present is used to express actions occurring in the future or the past.

e.g. Our plane leaves at eight o'clock tomorrow night.

Burglar Steals Valuable Paintings

In the first example, the Simple Present is used to refer to something which will happen in the future. In the second example, which is written in the style of a newspaper headline, the Simple Present is used to refer to something which happened in the past.

Verb forms

English verbs may have different forms, depending on the subject of the verb, and depending on when the action expressed by the verb takes place.

In the following sentences, the subjects of the verbs indicate who or what is performing the actions expressed by the verbs. The verbs in these examples are underlined.

e.g. We live in the city.

He lives on Queen Street.

These examples illustrate how the form of a verb may vary, depending on the subject of the verb. In the first example, the subject is we, and the form of the verb is live. In the second example, the subject is he, and the form of the verb is lives.

The different verb forms which indicate when the action expressed by a verb takes place are usually referred to as tenses.

e.g. We always walk to work.

We walked to work yesterday.

In the first sentence, the verb walk is in the Simple Present tense. In the second sentence, the verb walked is in the Simple Past tense. Present tenses are usually used to express actions which are taking place in the present; whereas past tenses are usually used to express actions which took place in the past.

The infinitive form of a verb can be used without reference to any particular subject or any particular time. In English, the infinitive form of a verb begins with the word to. For instance, to walk is the infinitive of the verb used in the two preceding examples.

Grammar

The grammar of a language is an analysis of the various functions performed by the words of the language, as they are used by native speakers and writers.

There are many different ways of analyzing a language. In such an analysis, words can be given various names, depending on the function which they perform. For instance, words which perform the function of naming things are commonly referred to as nouns, and words which perform the function of expressing states or actions are commonly referred to as verbs.

It should be kept in mind that many English words can perform more than one function. For instance, in the following sentences, the underlined words can be referred to as nouns because they perform the function of naming things.

e.g. I have lost my comb.

Water is one of the necessities of life.

However, in the following sentences, the same words can be referred to as verbs because they perform the function of expressing actions.

e.g. I comb my hair every morning.

Do you water your plants once a week?

In this book, widely used terms such as noun, verb, pronoun and so on, will be used in order to explain the way in which words function in the English language.

Contraction

In current English usage, contraction is the shortening of a word, syllable, or word group by omission of internal letters.In traditional grammar, contraction can denote the formation of a new word from one word or a group of words, for example, by elision. This often occurs in rendering a common sequence of words or, as in French, in maintaining a flowing sound.

In strict analysis, contractions should not be confused with abbreviations or acronyms (including initialisms), with which they share some semantic and phonetic functions, though all three are connoted by the term "abbreviation" in loose parlance.

Contractions may perform the same function as abbreviations. Strictly, an abbreviation is formed by omitting the ending of a word, for which a full point (or full stop or period) is substituted, e.g., Lieut. for "Lieutenant". Contractions omit the middle of a word, and are generally not terminated with a full point, e.g., Ltd for "Limited". However, US style uses more points than British style does, e.g., commonly, in Jr. instead of Jr for "Junior".

An informal type of contraction occurs frequently in speech and writing, in which a syllable is substituted by an apostrophe and/or other mode of elision, e.g., can't for "cannot", won't for "will not". Such contractions are often either negations with not or combinations of pronouns with auxiliary verbs, e.g., I'll for "I will". Informal examples include ain't for "am not" or "is not", and wouldn't've or even wouldn've for "would not have". At least one study has sought to analyze the category of negative informal contractions as the attachment of an inflectional suffix.

A commonly used English contraction of two words that does not fall into either of the above categories is let's, a contraction of "let us" that is used in forming the imperative mood in the first-person plural (e.g., "Let's go [somewhere]"). Use of the uncontracted "let us" typically carries an entirely different meaning, e.g., "Let us go [free]". "Let us" is rarely seen in the former sense and "let's" is never seen in the latter one.

Informal contractions are, by their nature, more frequent in speech than writing, e.g., John'd fix your television if you asked him. Contractions in English are generally not mandatory as in some other languages. It is almost always acceptable to write out (or say) all of the words of a contraction, though native speakers of English may judge a person not using contractions as sounding overly formal.

Common single-word contractions include: St for "Saint" (in proper names), ma'am for "madam" and fo'c'sle for "forecastle". St meaning "Street" (in proper names) is sometimes given a full point to eliminate any confusion with "Saint". Forms like gov't (or govt) for "government" and int'l (or intl) for "international" are purely written contractions.

Writers of English commonly confuse the possessive form of the pronoun it with its compounded contractions. The possessive form (its) has no apostrophe, while the contraction of it is or it has does have an apostrophe (it's). The same is true of the possessive form of "you" (your) with its contraction you're for "you are". See List of frequently misused English words.

The linguistic function of contractions is similar to and overlaps that of portmanteau words. Some forms of syncope may also be considered contractions, such as wanna for want to, gonna for going to, and others common in colloquial speech.

Contractions are used sparingly in formal written English. The APA style guide prefers that contractions, including Latin abbreviations, not be used in scholarly papers, and recommends that the equivalent phrase in English be written out. An exception is made for the Latin abbreviation et al. (for et alii, "and others"), which may be used with citations outside parentheses.

English grammar

English grammar is the body of rules describing the properties of the English language. A language is such that its elements must be combined according to certain patterns. This article is concerned with (and restricted to) morphology, the building blocks of language; and syntax, the construction of meaningful phrases, clauses and sentences with the use of morphemes and words.

The grammar of any language is commonly approached in two different ways: A descriptive, usually based on a systematic analysis of a large text corpus and describing grammatical structures thereupon; and a prescriptive, which attempts to use the identified rules of a given language as a tool to govern the linguistic behaviour of speakers (see Linguistic prescription and Descriptive linguistics). Prescriptive grammar further concerns itself with several open disputes in English grammar, often representing changes in usage over time. This article predominantly concerns itself with descriptive grammar.

There are a number of historical, social and regional variations of the English language. For example, British English and American English have several lexical differences; however, the grammatical differences are not equally conspicuous, and will be mentioned only when appropriate. Further, the many dialects of English have divergences from the grammar described here; they are only cursorily mentioned. This article describes a generalized present-day Standard English, the form of speech found in types of public discourse including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news reporting. Standard English includes both formal and informal speech.