background – English Grammar Profiler

The grammar of the past continuous tense is as follows: Subject + was/were + present participle For example: I was becoming more and more tired as the day went on. The plants were growing very quickly in the warm weather. Something strange was happening in the forest. The past continuous tense is used to describe […]

past continuous affirmative Read More »

In the English Grammar Profile, C2 point 236 in the category of MODALITY is defined: ‘as’ + pronoun + ‘used to’ to add background to a narrative, often to highlight something unusual *Note this is not the “as + adjective + as” structure. Student example in a speaking test: I don’t think that they pay enough attention towards the national customs as they used to do those days.

‘AS’ + pronoun + ‘USED’ + to-infinitive Read More »

Here’s an example of the preposition ‘after’ complemented by a non-finite perfect form of the passive ‘having been p.p.’ Roughly a month and a half after having been laid, the surviving eggs hatch. Listen In the English Grammar Profile, there are two similar C2 points in the category of passives: Point 38: non-finite ‘-ing’ perfect forms of the passive as the complement of prepositions. Point

Having been + PAST PARTICIPLE Read More »

Point 27 in the category of PAST is defined as: past perfect continuous: an action or event which began before a point in the past and was still continuing up to that point, often with ‘for’ or ‘since’, to give background information. Point 32 in the PAST is defined as: past perfect continuous: background action

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C1 point 32 in the category of PASSIVES is defined as: NON-FINITE CLAUSES ‘-ing’ form as a subordinate clause or a noun clause to give explanatory background information. A search in the iWeb corpus for . Being _VVN * * gives us our being + past participle list   1 . BEING LOCATED IN THE

BEING + past participle ‘Being born in the …’ Read More »

In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 78 in the category of PAST is defined as: past perfect continuous in relative clauses to give background information. For example: I was scrolling on social media,  and I saw a friend who had been sharing positive news stories. TED A search in iWeb corpus for: who|that|which had been _vvg gives us the most common continuous verbs found in past perfect continuous relative

past perfect continuous in a relative clause Read More »