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Taka Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

progressive?

0 01i01font00I02font01font00 was sitting in my room, reading a book, drinking a cup of tea. 02br
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02font02i01font00About 'reading' and 'drinking', are they: (1) a series of past progressive forms or (2) adverbial participles? And how do you cross out the other possibility when you choose either (1) or (2)?02br
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Top answer

0Hi Taka,02br 02br 00Your sentence: 01font 01i 00I was sitting in my room, reading a book, [and ]drinking a cup of tea. 02i 02font 02br 02br 01font 01i 00Reading and drinking are past progressive. 02font 00 The tone of this sentence was set up to detail what you were doing02i 00 01i 00as something else happened which seemed to be missing.

— Goodman

  • 0Hi Taka,02br 02br 00Your sentence: 01font 01i 00I was sitting in my room, reading a book, [and ]drinking a cup of tea.
  • 02i 02font 02br 02br 01font 01i 00Reading and drinking are past progressive.
  • 02font 00 The tone of this sentence was set up to detail what you were doing02i 00 01i 00as something else happened which seemed to be missing.
  • 02br 02i 02font 0-
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19 Answers
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0Hi Taka,02br
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00Your sentence: 01font01i00I was sitting in my room, reading a book, [and ]drinking a cup of tea. 02i02font02br
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01font01i00Reading and drinking are past progressive. You were sitting in the room, reading and drinking a cup of tea (01font
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0 Hmm...then what about this one?02br
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01font01i00She was alone in the corner, reading a book, smoking a cigarette.02br
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02i00Do you think 'reading' and 'smoking' here are also past progressive?02br
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0Absolutely!02br
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01i01font00She was alone in the corner, reading a book, [01font00while/ and02font00 ] smoking a cigarette.02font02i02br
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01i01font00She was alone in the corner, reading a book, smoking a cigarette. 02
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0 Won't that interpretation break the parallelism?02br
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01i01font01u00She was02u00 +(01u00alone in the corner02u00: a prepositional phrase)+(01u00reading a book:02u00 past progressive)+(01u00smoking a cigarette02u00: past progressive).02br
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01. I was sitting in my room, reading a book, drinking a cup of tea.02br
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00Interesting. I would tend towards interpreting them as participles, post-modifying "I". Cf:02br
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002. Reading a book, drinking a cup of tea, I was sitting in my room.02br
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00"I was sitting" in #1 looks at the action from the perspective of the speake
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0Hi Taka,02br
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00I agree with MrP.02br
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00Clive0-
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0 01blockquote
01cite10MrPedantic12cite101. I was sitting in my room, reading a book, drinking a cup of tea.12br
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10Interesting. I would tend towards interpreting them as participles, post-modifying "I". Cf:12br
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102. Reading a book, drinking a cup of tea, I was sitting in my room.12br
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0Hello Goodman02br
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00Yes, that sounds reasonable – the equivalent of the original would be:02br
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001. I was sitting in my room last night and (I was) reading a book and (I was) smoking a cigarette.02br
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00where "I was" is omitted.02br
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00But it also occurs to me that it might be possible to use inton
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00MrP,02br
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00What if we put “in my room 'in the past part of the sentence as an adverbial clause? Then it would look like this: 01font00I was reading and smoking a cigarette in my room02font00. This will make both actions ( reading and smoking) in past progressive, won’t it?0-
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0Hello Goodman02br
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00Yes, it will – once you exchange the comma for "and" (or another co-ordinating conjunction), you in effect create two separate sentences:02br
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00 I was reading + (I was) smoking a cigarette02br
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00MrP0-
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