The past perfect progressive, also known as the past perfect continuous, is a verb form indicating an action that occurred before another event. It combines the perfect and progressive aspects and is formed with “had been” plus the progressive participle. It is often found in sentences with two clauses, with one in the past tense. It can also be formed in the negative or reversed in a question.
In grammar, the past perfect progressive is a verb form that indicates an action that went on for a period of time before another event occurred. It is also called the past perfect continuous. In English, the past perfect progressive is formed by “had been” plus the progressive participle, as in “had beentching”.
English verbs can have both a tense, which indicates when an action occurred, and an aspect, which indicates the type of action. Strictly speaking, the only two English tenses are present and past; all other tense indicators are formed with auxiliary verbs or by verbal aspect. The two aspects of the English verb are perfect and progressive. “Perfect” refers to a completed action, while “progressive” means that an action continues over a period of time. As the name suggests, the past perfect progressive is in the past tense and combines both perfect and progressive aspects.
The past perfect progressive is often found in sentences with two clauses. One of the clauses is usually in the past tense, which means that it has no aspect. For example, “John was running for an hour before he fell” contains the past perfect progressive “he ran” and the simple past “fell”. This indicates that the action of running was progressive, meaning that it occurred over a period of time, but that it was perfected or completed by the time another action, the fall, occurred. The clauses could also be reversed, as in “John had been running for an hour before he fell.”
Like other verb forms, the past perfect continuous can also be formed in the negative or reversed in a question. To form a negative, the word “not” is sandwiched between “had” and “been”: “John didn’t run long before he fell.” The application form “Was John running long?” it is obtained by placing the subject – in this case “John” – between “had” and “been”.
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