The past perfect continuous

The Past Perfect Continuous is formed by means of the Past Perfect of the auxiliary verb “to be” (had been) and Participle I of the notional verb. In the interrogative form the first auxiliary verb is placed before the subject. In the negative form the negative particle “not” is placed after the first auxiliary verb.

I had been writing. She had been writing.

Had I been writing. Had she been writing.

I had not been writing. She had not been writing.

The contracted forms:

I’d been writing. She’d been writing.

I hadn’t been writing. She hadn’t been writing.

The negative-interrogative forms:

Had you not been writing? = Hadn’t you been writing?

Had he not been writing? = Hadn’t he been writing?

The use of the past perfect continuous

1.We use the Past Perfect Continuous to denote an action which began before a definite moment in the past, continued up to that moment and was still going on at that moment.

We could not go out because it had been raining since early morning.

Note! Sometimes both the Past Perfect and the Past Perfect Continuous can be used, but with some difference in meaning:

He said he had worked for twenty years. (The fact is emphasized.)

He said he had been working for a long time without achieving final results. (The process is emphasized.)

Note! We do not use the Past Perfect Continuous in negative sentences, the Past Perfect is preferred in them, when the negation refers to the action itself but not to its circumstances:

I knew they had not corresponded for years.

2. It is used to express an action which was in progress just before a given past moment and it affects the past situation in some way. It is not associated with any indications of time:

I sobbed still a little, but that was because I had been crying, not because I was crying then.

Her eyes were red. She had been crying.

3.It may be used with stative verbs:

Over tea she tried to find out whether he had been seeing his mistress.

4. It is used to express an action in the Present Perfect Continuous tense viewed from the past in the Sequence of tenses:

She said she had been reading for three hours by that time.

5.We can use this tense in a complex sentence with a subordinate clause of time introduced by:

a)since: Mr Bentley was a publisher because ever since he was a boy he had been liking books.

b)while: We had been sitting on our beds while George had been telling us this true story (the actions are simultaneous).

c)when: He had been sitting by the fire for nearly an hour when his mother came into the room with a letter in her hands.

Note! All the actions refer only to the past-time contexts!

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