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THE PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS TENSE
a. Use:
1- The Past Perfect Continuous tense is used to refer to a continuous,
ongoing action in the past which was interrupted by a second action in Simple Past. What is important is the duration of the action expressed through Past Perfect Continuous.
--> I had been waiting for
two months by the time I received the reply. --> He had
been thinking about his friends shortly before they called.
In the
preceding examples, the verbs had been waiting and had been
thinking are in the Past Perfect Continuous tense, and the verbs
received and called are in the Simple Past. The use of the Past
Perfect Continuous tense indicates that the actions of waiting and thinking were
continuous, and were interrupted by the actions expressed in the Simple Past.
2- Past perfect progressive tense lets you show that two actions took
place in the past, one an ongoing action and the other a one-time action, and
that the ongoing action preceded the one-time action.
--> Police had been tracking him for years and finally caught him.
The tracking went on for some time in the past.
The catching was a one-time action that also occurred in the past.
Furthermore, the tracking preceded the catching.
--> Jones, who had been running, arrived out of breath.
The running went on for some time in the past.
The arriving was a one-time action that also occurred in the past.
Furthermore, the running preceded the arriving.
b. Formation:
The
Past Perfect Continuous tense is formed from the Past Perfect of the auxiliary
to be, followed by the present participle of the verb. For example, the
Past Perfect Continuous tense of the verb to work is conjugated as
follows:
I had been working |
you had been working |
he had been working |
she had been working |
it had been working |
we had been working |
they had been working | The auxiliary
had is often contracted to 'd in spoken English.
c. Questions and negative statements:
As
is the case with other English tenses, questions and negative statements in the
Past Perfect Continuous tense are formed using the first
auxiliary.
Questions are formed by placing the first auxiliary before the
subject. For example:
Affirmative Statement |
Question |
I had been working. |
Had I been working? |
They had been working. |
Had they been working? | Negative
statements are formed by placing the word not after the first auxiliary.
For example:
Affirmative Statement |
Negative Statement |
I had been working. |
I had not been working. |
They had been working. |
They had not been working. | Negative questions are
formed by placing the first auxiliary before the subject, and the word
not after the subject. However, when contractions are used, the
contracted form of not follows immediately after the first auxiliary. For
example:
Without Contractions |
With Contractions |
Had I not been working? |
Hadn't I been working? |
Had they not been working? |
Hadn't they been working? |
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