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The preterite and past participle forms of irregular verbs follow certain patterns. These include ending in -t (e.g. build, bend, send), stem changes (whether it is a vowel, such as in sit, win or hold, or a consonant, such as in teach and seek, that changes), or adding the [n] suffix to the past participle form (e.g. drive, show, rise ...
The progressive (or continuous) aspect is expressed with a form of be together with the present participle of the verb. Thus present progressive (present continuous) constructions take forms like am writing, is writing, are writing, while the past progressive (past continuous, also called imperfect) forms are was writing, were writing.
The past progressive or past continuous construction combines progressive aspect with past tense, and is formed using the past tense of be (was or were) with the present participle of the main verb. It indicates an action that was ongoing at the past time being considered: At three o'clock yesterday, I was working in the garden.
The list that follows shows the base, or infinitive form, the past tense and the past participle of the verb. a- : for abide, arise, awake, see bide, rise, wake; be (am, is, are) – was, were – been; be- : for become, befall, beset, etc. see come, fall, set, etc. bear – bore – borne [spelt born in passive and adjectival uses relating to ...
The past tense (simple past or past progressive) of the condition clause is historically the past subjunctive. In modern English this is identical to the past indicative , except in the first and third persons singular of the verb be , where the indicative is was and the subjunctive were ; was is sometimes used as a colloquialism ( were ...
Imperfect meanings in English are expressed in different ways depending on whether the event is continuous or habitual.. For a continuous action (one that was in progress at a particular time in the past), the past progressive (past continuous) form is used, as in "I was eating"; "They were running fast."
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Past continuous may refer to: Past continuous or past progressive, an English verb form (e.g. was writing) Verb forms with similar meaning in some other languages; see Imperfect; Past Continuous, a novel by Yaakov Shabtai; A Life Apart (novel), titled Past Continuous in its original release as a novel by Neel Mukherjee released in 2008