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8a Go out and get some fresh air! You've been sitteing there reading all morning. 8b Look at the mess may paper's in! Who's been reading it? 9a I thought he needed some fresh air. He'd been sitting there reading all morning. 9b When I saw the mess my paper was in, it was obvious that someone had been reading it. 10 By next Chiristmas, I shall have been living in London for two years. In examples 1a-1c, and 2a-2c, the progressive forms indicate actions or series of actions viewed at some point between their beginning and end. Althought these formsimply that the action beganat some earlier time and ended at some later time, they draw our attention only to the situation at the particular time indicated by the context. The perfect progressive forms, in common with other progressive forms, draw attention to the duration of an action and indicate that the duration of the action is limited. But they differ from other progressive forms in that they indicate explicitly that the action or series of actions began at some point earlier in time (before now, before a time in the past, or before a future time.). In sentences 8a, 9a, and 10, the action is in progress up to and including the time indicated by the context. But this is not an essential feature of the perfect progressive forms, as we can see in 8b and 9b - no one is actually reading the paper at the time the question is asked. In every case, however, the action is relevant to the current situation: in 8a and 9a, 'you' need some fresh air at the time referred to because of your earlier activity; in 8b and 9b, 'my' paper is in a mess because of someone's earlier reading of it; while in 10, a period of two years will be complete when next Christmas comes. |