Past Perfect Progressive Aspect
Past Perfect Progressive Aspect
Past tense is used to express actions that happened in the past time. There are four aspects of the past tense.
- Past simple aspect
- Past perfect aspect
- Past progressive aspect
- Past perfect progressive aspect
All of the aspects differ in many ways, but still, students get confused between them. It is valid to a great extent that all 12 aspects of the tenses are not used in our daily conversation, but it should be of utmost preference for the students to learn all 12 aspects because it is believed that tenses are the roots of any language.
In this lesson, you are going to learn the past perfect progressive aspect; it’s the formation and uses of the past perfect aspect.
What is Past Perfect Progressive Aspect?
The past perfect progressive aspect is a combination of past perfect and past progressive aspect. It is also known as the past perfect continuous aspect.
It is used to express those actions that started in the past and continued for some time until another action started. Both actions started and ended in the past.
You can mention time in such sentences using for and since. Since we don’t use past perfect alone, you have to use past simple tense too.
Example:
- Elizabeth had been watching the movie for 3 hours.
- I had been playing the game for an hour before the class began.
Structure/ formation of the Past Perfect Progressive Aspect
The structure of the past perfect continuous aspect is easy. It is a combination of two formats: past perfect and past continuous aspect.
The sentence in past perfect continuous aspect is formed by using past simple of the auxiliary have (had), and past participle of the auxiliary verb be (been) and present participle form of the main verb.
Present participle of the main verb is formed by:
- Adding -ing to the verbs.
Example: Eat > eating, play > playing, sleep > sleeping.
- If the verb ends in -e, you have to remove the -e and add -ing.
Example: Ride > riding, slide > sliding.
- If the verb ends in -ie, you have to change -ie to -y and then add -ing into the verb.
Example: Die > dying, tie > tying, lie > lying
Affirmative/ positive sentences:
Subject | Auxiliary have | Auxiliary be | Verb | Object | Time reference | Punctuation |
Subject | had | Been | Present participle | Optional | Time reference | Period (.) |
Example:
- I had been working for 3 hours when you came home.
- She had been writing articles on several topics since morning.
- You had been sleeping for 5 hours before your parents came home.
- Juniper had been playing badminton before her friend came home.
- Alex had been practicing for 4 hours before the show began.
- They had been working for a news channel for five years before they went to North America.
Negative sentences:
Subject | Auxiliary have+ not | Auxiliary be | Verb | Object | Time reference | Punctuation |
Subject | Had not | Been | Present participle | Optional | Time reference | Period (.) |
Example:
- They had not been completing their homework before the teacher arrived.
- She had not been eating chicken for five years.
- He had not been painting the room before his master came.
- I had not been feeling sick now, so I went to college.
- The bikers had not been riding since the morning before their bikes got punctured.
- I had not been shopping in the mall before my dad asked me to do.
Interrogative sentences
Auxiliary have+ not | Subject | Auxiliary be | Verb | Object | Time reference | Punctuation |
Had | Subject | Been | Present participle | Optional | Time reference | Question mark (?) |
Example:
- Had they been playing piano for ten years in stage shows before they signed a movie?
- Had she been living in that small house before she moved to Canada?
- Had you been eating junk food before you were diagnosed with cancer?
- Had Alice been working on the project all day before I reached home?
- Had Martha been running 4 miles per day before she broke her leg?
- Had you been working at the company for five years before you got a promotion?
Uses of Past Perfect Progressive Aspect
- Duration before something in the the Past
- Cause and effect
The past perfect continuous aspect's main use is to represent something that started in the past, continued for some time in the past, and ended in the past. The duration can be represented by using time references such as five hours, five weeks, etc. it is almost like present perfect continuous aspect, but the action doesn’t continue until now; it ends before something else happens in the past.
Example:
- They had been playing video games for 3 hours before their dad arrived.
- James had been watching a movie for an hour before his friend came home.
- Had Lauren been teaching at the University of California for four years before she got married?
Another important use of the past perfect progressive aspect is to use past perfect progressive sentences before another sentence to show its cause and effect.
Example:
- I was tired because I had been practicing for the event.
- My brother gained weight because he had been eating a lot of junk food.
- Elenora failed the test because she had not been attending classes on a regular basis.
Conclusion
The outcomes of this lesson depend upon the practice. The more you practice grammar, the more you become fluent in it. The past perfect progressive aspect is not commonly used in English grammar because people use past simple tense but try to use the correct aspect every time.