Conjugation  (활용)                                           

What is conjugation?

The alteration of a verb’s form to express particular meanings is known as conjugation. This alteration can involve modifications that reflect grammatical tense, aspect, mood, voice, person, and speech. In this chapter, a brief overview of the different methods of verb conjugation will be provided. For a more comprehensive understanding, please consult the individual sections.

(Verb (동사)의 형태를 변형하여 특정 의미를 나타내는 것을 conjugation (활용)이라고 한다. 이 변형은 문법적 tense (시제), aspect (상), mood (법), voice (태), person (인칭, 사람), speech (화법)에 관한 변형을 포함할 수 있다. 이 장에서는 verb conjugation (동사 활용)의 다양한 방법에 대한 간단한 개요를 제공할 것이다. 자세한 정보는 개별 섹션을 참조)

Tense

Grammatical tense refers to verb conjugation to show when an action occurred. English has two main tenses: past and present, with the basic form indicating present and a unique form denoting past. To form continuous, perfect, and perfect continuous tenses, auxiliary verbs and participles are used. These are usually considered aspects of tense but grouped with verb tenses. English has no strict future tense but certain structures are used to express future actions and referred to as the future tense. Examples of each tense are provided, but see the individual sections for more information.

(문법적 tense (시제)는 verb (동사)의 conjugation (활용)을 통해 행동이 일어난 timing (시점)을 나타내는 것을 말합니다. 영어에서는 과거와 현재 두 가지 주요 시제가 있으며, 기본 형식은 현재를 나타내고 고유 형식은 과거를 나타냅니다. Continuous (연속적인), perfect (완벽한), perfect continuous tense (완벽한 연속적인 시제)를 형성하려면 auxiliary verb (조동사) 와 participles (분사)를 사용한다. 이들은 tense (시제)의 측면으로 간주되지만 보통 verb tenses (동사 시제)로 그룹화된다. 영어에는 엄격한 미래 시제가 없지만, 미래 행위을 표현하기 위해 일부 구조가 사용되어 future action (미래 행위)가 표현되는데 이를 future tense (미래시제)라 불린다. 각 시제의 예가 제공되지만 각각의 섹션에서 자세한 정보를 참조.)

Present Tense (현재시제)

Present Simple Tense(현재단순 시제)

• “I go to work every day.”
• “He works in finance.”
• “I don’t go out very often.”
• “Do you eat breakfast every morning?”
• “They are hungry.”

Present Continuous Tense (현재진행형 시제)

• “John is sleeping at the moment.”
• “Am I wearing the right uniform?”
• “Jack isn’t coming to the movie with us.”
• “Are you still reading that book?”
• “We’re flying to Spain tomorrow.”

Present Perfect Tense (현재완료 시제)

• “I have lived in Italy for many years.”
• “She has been here since 8 o’clock.”
• “Have you been here since this morning?”
• “We haven’t been to the movies in a long time.”
• “Have you seen my jacket anywhere?”

Present Perfect Continuous Tense(현재완료진행형 시제)

• “I’ve been writing for over an hour.”
• “How long have you been writing?”
• “They haven’t been living in Spain for very long.”
• “She’s tired because she’s been working a lot.”
• “That bag looks new. Have you been shopping?”

Past Tense(과거 시제)

Past Simple Tense(과거단순 시제)

• “She worked in finance before this job.”
• “We lived in China for six years after I graduated from college.”
• “They didn’t watch the movie last night.”
• “I went to the park yesterday.”
• “I was their accountant at the time.”

Past Continuous Tense (과거진행형 시제)

• “I was reading a book when they arrived.”
• “What were you talking about when I arrived?”
• “She was worrying we wouldn’t be able to afford the wedding.”
• “I wasn’t feeling well.”
• “Were you sleeping when I called?”

Past Perfect Tense(과거완료 시제)

• “The movie had already ended when I turned on the TV.”
• “I was sad to leave the house I had lived in for so many years.”
• “Until this morning, I had never been on a plane.”
• “Had you ever been on a tractor before working on our farm?”
• “I hadn’t eaten Parmesan cheese before going to Italy.”

Past Perfect Continuous Tense(과거완료진행형 시제)

• “When I arrived at the bus stop, the other people there had been waiting for nearly an hour.”
• “We hadn’t been talking for very long before she had to leave.”
• “My eyes were tired because I had been working on the computer.”
• “Had she been living in Italy for a long time?”
• “He had been feeling unwell, so he went to lie down.”

Future Tense(미래 시제)

The most common constructions of the future tenses use the modal auxiliary verb will or the verb phrase be going to. We can also use the modal verb shall to create the future tense, but this is generally reserved for more formal or polite English, and it is not very common in everyday speech and writing, especially in American English.

(가장 흔한 미래 future tense (시제) 구성은 modal auxiliary verb (조동사) will 또는 verb phrase (동사 구문) be going to을 사용한다. The future tense (미래 시제)를 만들기 위해 조동사 shall을 사용할 수도 있지만, 이는 대체로 더 공손하거나 정례적인 영어에 사용되는것으로 아시면 된다. 특히 미국 영어에서 일상적인 말이나 쓰임이 흔하기도 하지만 will 이 더 많이 사용되는 편이다.)

Future Simple Tense(미래단순 시제)

• “The Queen will be in Rome tomorrow.”
• “She won’t do her homework.”
• “Will they be late?”
• “I am going to wash my hair after dinner.”
• “Are you going to mow the lawn today?”

Future Continuous Tense(미래진행형 시제)

• “I’ll be flying to Boston tomorrow, so I can’t come to lunch.”
• “People are going to be consuming even more natural resources by the year 2030.”
• “Is she going to be working from home now?”
• “I’m not going to be living in New York for much longer.”
• “You shouldn’t call their house now; they will be sleeping.”

Future Perfect Tense(미래완료 시제)

• “By October we will have lived in this house for 20 years.”
• “After this next race, I will have completed 10 triathlons.”
• “You will have heard by now that the company is going bankrupt.”
• “Will they have read the memo ahead of the meeting?”
• “Why are you going to the airport so early? Her flight will not have arrived yet.”

Future Perfect Continuous Tense(미래 완료 진행형 시제)

• “She’ll have been waiting for nearly an hour by the time we arrive.”
• “I will have been living in this country for 10 years this November.”
• “Will they have been looking through our tax returns for the last few years?”
• “How will he have been coping on his own for all these years?”
• “He won’t have been sleeping for very long, but I have to wake him up.”

Aspect (상)

There is often confusion between grammatical aspects and tenses. Tense refers to the time an action, state, or event occurs, while aspect focuses on how the action unfolds over time. We use aspect and tense together to construct verb forms that convey when an action takes place and how it takes place. For instance, when we use the present continuous tense, we’re employing a specific aspect of the present tense. By examining aspect, we can determine if an action occurs once, over a duration, or repeatedly.

(문법적 aspect (상)와 tense (시제)를 혼동하는 경우가 종종 있다. tense (시제)는 action (행동), state (상태) 또는 event (일 또는 사건)이 일어나는 timing (시간)을 나타내는 반면, aspect (상)는 action (행동)이 time (시간)을 통해 어떻게 전개되는지에 초점을 맞춘다. 우리는 aspect (상)와 tense (시제)를 함께 사용하여 언제 행동이 발생하고 어떻게 발생하는지 전달하는 verb (동사) form (형태)를 구성한다. 예를 들어, present continuous tense (현재진행형 시제)을 사용할 때, present tense (현재 시제)의 특정 aspect (상)를 사용한다. Aspect (상)를 검토함으로써, 어떤 action (행동)이 얼마의 시간동안 발생하는지, 계속 반복적으로 발생하는지를 인지할수있다)

Perfective and imperfective aspect

When we want to emphasize the entirety of action and provide a summary, we use the perfective aspect. It is applicable to actions and events in the past, present, or future.
(어떤 행동의 전체성과 요약을 강조하고자 할 때, 우리는 perfective aspect (완결상)을 사용한다. Perfective aspect (완결상)는 past (과거), present (현재), 또는 future (미래)의 action (행동)과 event (일, 사건)에 적용될 수 있다.)
For example:

• “I ate dinner.”
• “I swim like a fish.”
• “We will help you tomorrow.”

On the other hand, the imperfective aspect is used when we want to highlight the internal structure of an action instead of its entirety. This aspect is used to describe an action that is ongoing or one that occurred repeatedly in the past.

(반면에, imperfective aspect (비완결상)은 어떤 행동의 내부 구조에 중점을 두고 전체적인 행동보다는 그 구조를 강조하고자 할 때 사용된다. 비완결상은 현재 진행 중인 행동 또는 과거에 반복적으로 발생한 행동을 설명하는 데 사용된다.)

as in:

• “I was washing dishes when she came through the door.”
• “We used to go traveling a lot.”

Aspects of verb tenses

The four temporal structures, namely simple, perfect, continuous, and perfect continuous, are present in each verb tense. They correspond with the verb tenses that we discussed earlier.
(Simple (기본형), perfect (완료형), continuous (진행형), 그리고 perfect continuous (완료진행형)의 4가지 시제 구조가 각 verb tense (동사 시제)에 포함된다.)

Aspects of the present tense (현재시제의 상)

Aspect	Structure	Examples
Simple	Subject + present verb	“I go shopping on Tuesdays.” “She runs fast.”
Perfect	Subject + have/has + past participle	“I have eaten here before.” “She has lived here for a long time.”
Continuous	Subject + is/are + present participle	“We are cooking dinner.” “He is singing a song.”
Perfect Continuous	Subject + have/has + been + present participle	“He has been thinking about it.” “I have been taking an art class.”

Aspects of the past tense (과거시제의 상)

Aspect	Structure	Examples
Simple	Subject + past verb	“I went shopping on Tuesday.” “She ran fast.”
Perfect	Subject + had + past participle	“I had eaten there before.” “She had lived here for a long time.”
Continuous	Subject + was/were + present participle	“We were cooking dinner.” “He was singing a song.”
Perfect Continuous	Subject + had + been + present participle	“He had been thinking about it.” “I had been taking an art class.”

Aspects of the future tense(미래시제의 상)

Aspect	Structure	Examples
Simple	Subject + will/be going to + infinitive	“I will go shopping on Tuesday.” “She is going to run fast.”
Perfect	Subject + will have + past participle	“I will have eaten before arriving.” “She will have lived here for a long time.”
Continuous	Subject + will/be going to + be + present participle	“We are going to be cooking dinner.” “He will be singing a song.”
Perfect Continuous	Subject + will/would + have + been + present participle	“He’ll have been thinking about it.” “I would have been taking an art class.”

Mood

Grammatical mood denotes how a speaker or writer employs a verb to convey specific meanings. It can indicate what is factual, hypothetical or unreal, or it can be used to issue commands or requests for future actions. The three primary grammatical moods are the indicative, subjunctive, and imperative moods.

(문법적 mood (법)은 speaker (말하는 사람)이나 writer (작가)가 verb (동사)를 사용하여 특정한 의미를 전달하는 방식을 말한다. 이는 현재 일어나고 있는 일, 가상이나 비현실적인 것, 또는 미래의 일을 명령하거나 요청하는 데 사용될 수 있다. 주요한 문법적 mood (법)으로는 indiative mood (직설법), subjunctive mood(가정법), imperative mood (명령법)가 있다.)

Indicative mood(직설법)

The indicative mood conveys facts, opinions, or questions in declarative or interrogative sentences.
(직설법(Indicative mood)은 진술문 (declarative statement) 이나 의문문 (interrogative statement) 으로 사실 (facts), 의견 (opinion), 질문 (question)을 전달함에 쓰인다.)

For example:

• “She graduated last year with a doctorate in neuroscience.”
• “He isn’t taking his exam at the new testing center.”
• “Are you going to give your speech tomorrow?”

Subjunctive Mood (가정법)

The subjunctive mood uses specific verb forms to depict actions, events, or situations that are hypothetical or unreal. Such constructions may express desires, recommendations, or potential consequences that depend on particular conditions.
(Subjunctive mood (가정법)은 가정적이거나 실제가 아닌 행동, 사건 또는 상황을 묘사하기 위해 특정 동사 형태를 사용한다. 이러한 구성은 특정 조건에 따라 종속되는 희망, 제안 또는 가능한 결과를 나타낼 수 있다.)

For example:

• “I wish I didn’t have to go to work.” (wish)
• “I recommend that she study harder next time.” (suggestion)
• “If I had been more prepared, I would have passed that test.”

Imperative Mood

When creating imperative sentences, which can include direct commands, orders, or general instructions, the imperative mood is employed. In such sentences, the verb is used in its infinitive form (without “to”), and the subject of the verb is omitted.

(직접 명령, 지시어 또는 일반 지시를 포함하는 명령문을 만들 때, imperative mood (명령법)을 사용한다. 이러한 문장에서 동사는 ‘to’가 없는 동사 원형 형태로 사용되며, 동사의 주어는 생략된다.)

For example:

• “Turn off the light before you leave.”
• “Go to bed!”
• “Please close the door.”
• “Pay attention!”

Voice (태)

The grammatical voice in a sentence refers to the connection between the subject (or agent) and the verb. The two primary types of voice are active voice and passive voice, while a less common type known as “middle” voice also exists.

Active Voice

A verb is in the active voice when the agent of the verb (the person or thing that performs the action specified by the verb) is also the subject of the sentence.

For example:

• “The boy sang a song.” (the boy is the agent of the verb sang)
• “I am watching a movie.” (I is the agent of the verb am watching)
• “Vivian writes well.” (Vivian is the agent of the verb writes)

Passive Voice

In a sentence where the subject is being acted upon by the verb, the passive voice is used. The object of the verb’s action becomes the subject of the sentence, and the agent of the action, if present, is identified through the preposition “by”.

For example:

• “A famous piano piece will be performed by Angie tomorrow night.”
• “His new book has already been read by thousands of people.”
• “The light bulb was patented in 1880.” (no agent)

“Middle” Voice

The “middle” voice describes a type of voice in which the agent performs the verb’s action on itself. Verbs in the middle voice are often followed by reflexive pronouns. For example:

• “My girlfriend always checks herself in the mirror before we go out.”
• “The dog bit itself on the tail.”

“Middle” voice can also be used to describe some intransitive verbs that act upon their agents. For example:

• “The lasagna cooked in the oven for several hours.”
• “The bicycle broke without warning.”

Grammatical Person

Grammatical person refers to the degree of involvement of a participant in an action, event, or circumstance. There are three degrees of grammatical person: first person (the speaker), second person (someone being spoken to), and third person (anyone/anything not being directly addressed).

The vast majority of verbs only conjugate for third-person singular subjects (e.g., he, she, and it) by taking the suffix “-s” or “-es,” as in:

• “I eat pasta.” (first-person singular)
• “We eat pasta.” (first-person plural)
• “You eat pasta.” (second-person singular/plural)
• “She/he/it eats pasta.” (third-person singular)
• “They eat pasta.” (third-person plural)

However, the verb be is unique in that it has five different conjugations according to the grammatical person of its subject and the tense of the verb.

• “I am happy.” (first-person singular, present tense)
• “I was happy.” (first-person singular, past tense)
• “We are happy.” (first-person plural, present tense)
• “We were happy.” (first-person plural, past tense)
• “You are happy.” (second-person singular/plural, present tense)
• “You were happy.” (second-person singular/plural, past tense)
• “She/he/it is happy.” (third-person singular, present tense)
• “She/he/it was happy.” (third-person singular, past tense)
• “They are happy.” (third-person plural, present tense)
• “They were happy.” (third-person plural, past tense)

To learn more about the way that other verbs conjugate for the third-person singular, go to the section on Grammatical Person

Speech

Grammatical speech, also known as reported or indirect speech, is the way we convey what others have said, which affects verb conjugation. This is typically done using reporting verbs, such as “say,” “tell,” or “ask.” There are two main categories of speech: direct and reported speech, with sub-categories such as free indirect speech and silent speech.

Direct speech

Direct speech, also called quoted speech, is when you repeat exactly what someone else said. When reporting speech that occurred in the past, the verb of the reporting sentence is in the past tense, but the verbs within the quotation are not changed.

When used in writing, we indicate the quoted speech with quotation marks ( “ ” ), and we usually set it apart with one or two commas (unless we are quoting a fragment that blends in with the overall sentence). For example:

• John said, “I’ll never live in this city again.”
• Mary told him, “I want to have another baby,” which took him by surprise.
• John said he feels “really bad” about what happened.

(There are a number of other nuances surrounding punctuating that occur when we use direct speech in certain circumstances, as well as if we are writing in American English or British English. Continue on to the section dealing with Speech to learn more.)

Reported (Indirect) Speech

Often, instead of directly quoting someone, we summarize or restate what they said, known as reported or indirect speech. Quotation marks are not used in reported speech. Additionally, according to standard rules, the tense of the original statement is shifted back by one degree, for example from present simple to past simple. For example:

Non-reported sentence	Verb shift	Reported speech
I live in Germany.	present simple tense shifts to past simple tense	He said he lived in Germany.
I was a carpenter before I moved here.	past simple tense shifts to past perfect tense	She said that she had been a carpenter before she moved here.
He is writing a letter to our friend.	present continuous tense shifts to past continuous tense	She told us he was writing a letter to our friend.
She was sleeping when you called.	past continuous tense shifts to past perfect continuous tense	He told me you had been sleeping when I called.

But in contemporary English, this rule is not always followed and the meaning of the sentence is not affected if the tense is not shifted. To gain more information on how to change or not change the tense and wording of sentences, refer to the section on reported speech.

Free Indirect and Silent Speech

Free indirect speech is used to indicate the thoughts or mental processes of a character, usually in the form of a rhetorical question. We do not use reporting verbs or quotation marks. For example:

• He had no money, no job, and no friends. How had his life arrived to such a desperate point?

Silent speech refers to something that is said internally (i.e., silently) by someone to him- or herself. We still use reporting verbs, but we can use either quotation marks or italics to indicate the silent speech, or nothing at all—it is up to the writer’s preference. For example:

• “I’m never coming back to this town again,” he murmured to himself.
• She thought, What a beautiful country.
• It will be quiet around here when the kids go to college, Dan thought.

Conjugation vs. Declension

Remember that conjugation is the specific term used for the inflection of verbs—no other part of speech is conjugated. For any other kind of word that goes through inflection (nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs), we use the term declension. Head to that section to learn more.