Grammar

Past Perfect Progressive

1-C
Department of English Education
Faculty of Tarbiya and Teaching Sciences
 Usage
• To emphasize the continuation for an action that was in
progress before another action or time the past
• To show the cause of a past action.
• Refer to activities or situations that had ended before
another event or time in the past.
• With time expressions such us when, before, by the
time, for, since, and how long
• We don’t use the progressive form with verbs that have
stative meaning
• CORRECT : She had been tired all day
• INCORRECT : She had been being all day
 Form

• (+) S + had been + V-ing

• (-) S + had not/ hadn’t been + V-ing
• (?) Had + S + been + V-ing ?
 Example 1
(Sentence)
A. (+) I had been working when she called me.
(-) I had not been working when she called
me.
(?) Had you been working when she called
you?
B. (+) The labors had been demonstrating.
(-) The labors hadn’t been demonstrating.
(?) Had the labors been demonstrating?
 Example 2
(Paragraph)
Elyse and Paula were identical twins separated at birth.
Both girls knew that their parents had adopted them as
infants, but neither girl knew about her twin. When Elyse
grew up, she longed to meet her biological mother, so she
contacted the agency that had arranged the adoption. She
had been doing research on her birth mother when she
made a surprising discovery. She had an identical twin.
Even more surprising, she learned that she had been part
of a secret scientific study. At the time of the adoption, the
agency had allowed different families to adopt each twin.
The agency had told the families that their child was part
of a scientific study. However, it had never told the
families the goal of the study: for scientists to investigate
nature versus nurture. (Beyond and Nature)