Re: USAGE: gotten, boughten
| From: | Eli Ewing <celticslim@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, June 25, 2002, 16:26 |
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joe mentioned that:
>Ummm...'went' isn't imperfect, it's simple past, effectively the same as the
>perfect. The imperfect would be 'was going'.
This is why I hate English. 5,104 different possible constructions of the
same verb.
Still, it says here that "was going," "used to go," and "went" are all forms
of imperfect past, and that "was going" is the "past continuous"
construction, i.e., one specific imperfect form.
However, I stand corrected at least in this: for my use, I should have said
"simple past."
Eli
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