Pluperfect progressive tense
- Pluperfect progressive tense
The pluperfect progressive tense (or past perfect continuous) is a perfective tense in most Indo-European languages which shows an event that started in the past and continued up until another time in the past. This grammatical tense may be contrasted with the present perfect continuous tense, wherein the duration of the event does not continue up until the present time, but rather stops before another event in the past.
An example of this tense may be observed in the sentence, 'The boys had been discoursing for an hour before Edward arrived.' In this example, the event which began in the past would be the 'discourse between the boys', whereas the second event (which ceased at another time in the past) would be the arrival of Edward. The clause, 'the boys had been discoursing' is the pluperfect progressive tense.
The past perfect continuous tense is formed with had + been + present participle of a verb.
Past Continuous vs. Past Perfect Continuous
If one does not include, 'for five minutes', 'for two weeks' or 'since Friday', many anglophones prefer to use the past continuous rather than the past perfect continuous. The past continuous emphasizes interrupted actions, whereas the past perfect continuous emphasizes the duration of time before something in the past. In order to elucidate this explanation, the following examples are supplied:::* Jonathan was fatigued because he was working so diligently.:: ("This sentence emphasizes that Jonathan was fatigued because he was working at that exact moment")::* Jonathan was fatigued because he had been working so diligently.:: ("This sentence emphasizes that he was fatigued because he had been working over a period of time. It is possible that Jonathan was still working at that moment " or " that he had just finished. ")
See also
* pluperfect tense
Wikimedia Foundation.
2010.
Look at other dictionaries:
Pluperfect tense — The pluperfect tense (from Latin plus quam perfectum more than perfect), also called past perfect in English, is a perfective tense that exists in most Indo European languages, used to refer to an event that has completed before another past… … Wikipedia
Pluperfect — The pluperfect (from Latin plus quam perfectum more than perfect), also called past perfect in English, is a grammatical combination of past tense with the perfect, itself a combination of tense and aspect, that exists in most Indo European… … Wikipedia
tense — Synonyms and related words: accented, agitated, all overish, alveolar, antsy, anxious, anxioused up, aorist, apical, apico alveolar, apico dental, apprehensive, articulated, assimilated, back, barytone, bilabial, bothered, brace, broad, cacuminal … Moby Thesaurus
Past tense — The past tense is a verb tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past of the current moment (in an absolute tense system), or prior to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future (in a relative tense system).#… … Wikipedia
Perfect aspect — The perfect aspect is variously considered either an aspect or tense which calls a listener s attention to the consequences generated by an action, rather than the action itself. This must be distinguished from the perfective aspect, which marks… … Wikipedia
Conditional sentence — For the non custodial punishment for a crime in Canada, see conditional sentence (Canada). In grammar, conditional sentences are sentences discussing factual implications or hypothetical situations and their consequences. Languages use a variety… … Wikipedia
Portuguese grammar — Portuguese grammar, the morphology and syntax of the Portuguese language, is similar to the grammar of most other Romance languages especially Galician and the other languages of Iberian Peninsula. It is a synthetic, fusional language. Nouns,… … Wikipedia
English verbs — Because of the neatness of this system, modern textbooks on English generally use the terminology in this table. What was traditionally called the perfect is here called present perfect and the pluperfect becomes past perfect , in order to show… … Wikipedia
Spanish verbs — are one of the most complex areas of Spanish grammar. Spanish is a synthetic language with a moderate to high degree of inflection which shows up mostly in the verb conjugation.The Spanish verb system is separated into 14 distinct tenses (tense… … Wikipedia
English conjugation tables — This is a paradigm of English verbs, that is, a set of conjugation tables, for the model regular verbs and for some of the most common irregular verbs. The tables analyze English according to a traditional grammar perspective.=Mood, tense, voice … Wikipedia
