As far as I know these are tenses that you do not often use. Am I right?
Will have been + verb+ing
Would have been + verb+ing
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Mari-Lou A
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nima
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I do not use them often; I try not to abuse tenses. I've been wrong before, I will have been wrong again. – Elliott Frisch Jan 23 '14 at 19:25
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Verb+ing = gerund ?"I would have been playing soccer if my work was complete" – Argot Jan 23 '14 at 19:25
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5@argot: This is a present participle; using 'gerund' here is at best highly disputable. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 23 '14 at 19:29
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2Thank you all so much. but, would you please kindly answer my original question? – nima Jan 23 '14 at 19:31
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possible duplicate of Who knows which tenses of English are not used or used merely? – Mitch Jan 23 '14 at 22:54
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possible duplicate of How many tenses are there in English? – tchrist Jan 24 '14 at 03:03
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meta: The new question (http://english.stackexchange.com/q/147702/14666) of the OP shows that the comments and answers on this page have been of not much avail to them. The new question supersedes this and so this post may be closed as redundant. – Kris Jan 24 '14 at 08:09
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English is not my native language, but I'm good at it. Once I used this construction: will+ have been+ doing and my supervisor was so astonished, saying I must not use this and it's non grammatical – Apr 13 '14 at 09:16
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You are right that the two constructions are not often used. This is because they express uncommon ideas. Both are grammatical, however, and could be used as follows:
By the time I retire I will have been working here for 45 years.
If you had called me 10 minutes ago, I would have been sleeping.
Shoe
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3+1 "This is because they express uncommon ideas." It's not that these tenses are avoided, it's simply that they are not often needed. – zombiebeethoven Jan 23 '14 at 20:55
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It's just that these aren't tenses. They're just a couple of the many thousands of possible English auxiliary verb constructions, most of which are used infrequently because there are so many of them. – John Lawler Jan 23 '14 at 21:06
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No more than they consider the Past Usitative Necessitive a tense. What you call "future-perfect" is a combination of the modal auxiliary will with a perfect construction. One can do the same with the other modal auxiliaries may, might, must, can, could, shall, should, and would. And one can do the same with all kinds of other constructions, like the "Past Usitative Necessitive Tense" of go, I used to have to go. – John Lawler Jan 23 '14 at 23:48
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Oh, and it's linguist, by the way. As you are surely aware, nobody ever uses linguistician. – John Lawler Jan 23 '14 at 23:49
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I do see how this can answer the OP's question. Please also see my meta comment at the OP. – Kris Jan 24 '14 at 08:11