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A decade ago, nearly a million and a half elephants were living in Africa.

Does the word'living' act as a present participle or verb of past continous

Please explain it to me.

tunny
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Lihong Wang
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2 Answers2

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What you have used is the imperfect tense, or as you call it, the past continuous.

It is formed from the simple past of the modal 'to be', and the present participle.

I was running, she was climbing, elephants were living, we were having dinner, you were going to college etc.

The imperfect implies continuity, unlike the past which refers to a snapshot in time.

WS2
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  • in what context would you prefer were living to lived in the sentence from the original question. I cannot think of any where lived would not work and were living would be correct. – Arsen Y.M. Nov 13 '14 at 00:11
  • 'I was living in London in 1966, when the Beatles were at the height of their fame'. 'They were walking in the park when it started to rain'. The imperfect indicates continuity, whilst the past just provides a snapshot in time. You may well find the English language Learners site helpful. – WS2 Nov 13 '14 at 01:01
  • Alright, my fault that I didn't formulate my question precisely. I meant a single clause sentence with one subject and one verb. Also, I dare to argue about your first example, and I think I lived will be perfectly fine there. And it is because the peak of their fame lasted not just a single moment but a certain period of time, as opposed to the start of the rain, which definitely started in a single moment. – Arsen Y.M. Nov 13 '14 at 01:05
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Combinations of the auxiliary verb BE and the -ing form of a lexical verb are generally known as progressive or continuous forms. The tense of the auxiliary is the tense of the whole form. ... were living is therefore past progressive/continuous.

The progressive forms were once labelled as tenses, but most modern grammarians, for example Quirk et et al (A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, 1985.197) and Huddleston & Pullum( The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, 2002.117) consider them to be aspects.

tunny
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