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Perfect progressive tenses
Perfect progressive tenses, like other perfect tenses, offer specific nuances regarding actions with an emphasis on their duration or course. Here's a summary of the key features of these tenses:
Present Perfect Progressive
- Affirmative (A): "He has been speaking."
- Negative (N): "He has not been speaking."
- Interrogative (Q): "Has he been speaking?"
- Usage:
- Putting emphasis on the course or duration of an action (not the result).
- Describing actions that recently stopped or are still ongoing.
- Referring to finished actions that have influenced the present.
- Time Indicators: all day, for 4 years, since 1993, how long?, the whole week.
Past Perfect Progressive
- Affirmative (A): "He had been speaking."
- Negative (N): "He had not been speaking."
- Interrogative (Q): "Had he been speaking?"
- Usage:
- Describing actions taking place before a certain time in the past.
- Sometimes interchangeable with the past perfect simple but emphasizes the duration or course of an action.
- Time Indicators: for, since, the whole day, all day.
Future Perfect/II Progressive
- Affirmative (A): "He will have been speaking."
- Negative (N): "He will not have been speaking."
- Interrogative (Q): "Will he have been speaking?"
- Usage:
- Referring to actions taking place before a certain time in the future.
- Putting emphasis on the course of an action.
- Time Indicators: for..., the last couple of hours, all day long.
Conditional Perfect/II Progressive
- Affirmative (A): "He would have been speaking."
- Negative (N): "He would not have been speaking."
- Interrogative (Q): "Would he have been speaking?"
- Usage:
- Referring to actions that might have taken place in the past.
- Putting emphasis on the course or duration of the action.
- Time Indicators: Not specified.
These perfect progressive tenses allow for a more detailed description of actions by highlighting their ongoing nature and the duration of their occurrence in relation to different points in time—past, present, or future.
Overview
Here's an overview of the different progressive tenses and their typical uses:
| Present Perfect Progressive | A: He has been speaking. N: He has not been speaking. Q: Has he been speaking? |
putting emphasis on the course or duration (not the result) action that recently stopped or is still going on finished action that influenced the present |
all day, for 4 years, since 1993, how long?, the whole week |
| Past Perfect Progressive | A: He had been speaking. N: He had not been speaking. Q: Had he been speaking? |
action taking place before a certain time in the past sometimes interchangeable with past perfect simple putting emphasis on the duration or course of an action |
for, since, the whole day, all day |
| Future Perfect/ II Progressive | A: He will have been speaking. N: He will not have been speaking. Q: Will he have been speaking? |
action taking place before a certain time in the future putting emphasis on the course of an action |
for …, the last couple of hours, all day long |
| Conditional Perfect/ II Progressive | A: He would have been speaking. N: He would not have been speaking. Q: Would he have been speaking? |
action that might have taken place in the past puts emphasis on the course / duration of the action |