Grammar – Past Tense and Perfect Aspect in ‘What Did You Do Yesterday?’

grammarpast-tenseperfect-aspect

Please help me out, what extra words are needed to convey the incomplete nature of the actions?

A: What did you do yesterday?

B:

  1. I read books.
  2. I wrote my book.
  3. I built the wooden ship (which you had given me).
  4. I drew a picutre.
  5. I knitted a sweater.
  6. I climbed the mountain.

None of these actions were complete. B just did them for some time but not till their end. (Leonardo Da Vinci painted the Monalisa for 4 years. On one of the days in the middle he just painted it for a while and postponed continuation for another day)

Best Answer

English doesn't have an imperfect tense, so the incompleteness of an action must be inferred from context, or described in words.

I read my book.

From context (assuming you are an adult) I'd guess that you didn't start and finish the book on the same day. I'd assume this was incomplete, unless you told me otherwise.

It is possible to use continuous tenses to give a sense of incompleteness:

I spent the morning writing my book.

Again from context we know that books aren't normally written in one sitting.

Otherwise we have lots of words that we can use:

I carried on building the ship that you gave me.

I continued to work on my drawing.

I did another 5 rows of knitting my sweater.

I climbed on the mountain, but didn't reach the summit.

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