past progressive tense
- noun
- /pæst prəˈɡrɛsɪv tɛns/
- Specialized
:
pretérito imperfecto
- In the sentence 'She was reading', the past progressive tense is used to show the action was ongoing.
Examples
-
To form the past progressive tense, use 'was' or 'were' followed by a present participle verb.
-
Grammar books often explain the past progressive tense as describing background actions in stories.
-
The past progressive tense describes actions that were ongoing.
-
Are you familiar with the past progressive tense?
-
In the sentence 'He was walking to the store', the past progressive tense indicates that the action was ongoing at that moment in the past.
-
Teachers often illustrate the past progressive tense by using examples that involve actions happening simultaneously.
-
When we say 'They were playing soccer', we use the past progressive tense to highlight that the playing was an ongoing action.
Synonyms
A verb form that shows an action happening at a certain time in the past
To talk about past actions that happened often or were still happening
Surface Forms
Morphology
past + progressive + tense
The phrase is directly compositional: 'past' specifies past time, 'progressive' denotes an action in progress, and 'tense' indicates a verb form — together clearly describe a verb form for ongoing past actions. This grammatical logic is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent meanings can infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Past progressive tense gets its name from the idea that an action was in the past but still 'in progress' at that time, and progressive shows the action was ongoing. That's why we use 'was' or 'were' plus a verb ending in -ing, for example 'She was reading', to show the action was happening then.
