Tense and Progressive Aspect Verbs are like bridges: they span the past, present, and future and take you there.
TENSE refers to time. ASPECT indicates other information about the action or state of the verb: duration, repetition, completion, or quality of the action - but not time. Timeless forms (base form, present participle, and past participle) combine with time-included auxiliary verbs to indicate aspects of verbs. A verb phrase is, therefore, always a TIME-INCLUDED FORM + TIMELESS FORM.
PROGRESSIVE ASPECT means that the main verb is inflected (-ing) to indicate duration of the action or state expressed by the verb. A progressive verb is formed with a time-included form of the auxiliary verb BE and the PRESENT PARTICIPLE of the main verb, a timeless form.
Tense
Example Sentence
Explanation
Present Progressive
(1) Some students are practicing English with software programs while others are writing their essays.
These are two activities that are simultaneously in progress on any given day in the ESL Lab.
(2) You can often hear students burst out laughing while Leslie is presenting her workshop.
The laughter happens intermittently for the duration of the workshop.
Past Progressive
(1) The students were busily taking notes while the instructor was demonstrating a tool in Adobe Illustrator.
The progressive verbs indicate that both actions were happening simultaneously.
(2) While the instructor was giving her demonstration, the computer crashed.
The progressive verb indicates an action was in progress when another event occurred. The action that interrupts the action in progress is simple past tense.
Future Progressive
(1) Next semester, Abity will be studying at UC Davis.
The verb indicates that this will occur over a duration of time (a whole semester and longer).
(2) Next fall, Kara will be working in New York while Jon goes to law school.
The progressive verb indicates an action that will continue for some time. Note that future is never used in a time clause (while Jon goes to law school).
Tense and Progressive Aspect