Inflected Forms of Verbs
A typical English verb may have five different inflected forms:
- the base form or plain form (go, write), which has several uses – as an infinitive, imperative, present subjunctive, and present indicative except in the third-person singular;
- the -s form (goes, writes), used as the present indicative in the third-person singular;
- the past tense or preterite (went, wrote);
- the past participle (gone, written) – this is identical to the past tense in the case of regular verbs and some irregular ones;
- the -ing form (going, writing), used as a present participle, gerund, and (de)verbal noun.
The verb be has a larger number of different forms (am, is, are, was, were, etc.), while the modal verbs have a more limited number of forms. Some forms of be and of certain other auxiliary verbs also have contracted forms ('s, 're, 've, etc.).
For full details of how these inflected forms of verbs are produced, see English verbs.
Read more about this topic: Pluperfect Progressive
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