---
title: The past continuous is was or were plus an -ing verb, for an action… — Tenses: past, present and future · tree and pragmatics
description: The past continuous is was or were plus an -ing verb, for an action in progress in the past: "I was swimming". Who acts: British speakers. A sentence of the lesson «Tenses: past, present and future» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every 
---

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# Tenses: past, present and future, sentence 14

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The past continuous is was or were plus an -ing verb, for an action in progress in the past: "I was swimming".

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**Who acts:** British speakers · **What happens:** be, swim · **To what, where:** past continuous, ing verb, action

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Tenses: past, present and future» of the language course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (British speakers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:language:008-tenses-past-present-future.lesson:14
# text = The past continuous is was or were plus an -ing verb, for an action in progress in the past: "I was swimming".
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = language
# lesson = 008-tenses-past-present-future.lesson
# annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	past	past	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	continuous	continuous	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
6	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
7	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
8	plus	plus	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	_
11	ing	ing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	verb	verb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	action	action	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	progress	progress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	past	past	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
22	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	26	punct	_	_
23	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	26	punct	_	_
24	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
26	swimming	swim	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	acl:relcl	_	_
27	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	26	punct	_	_
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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No stored speech act for this sentence.

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present |  | the past continuous or a ing verb and a action in progress in the past |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | past |  | a ing verb and a action in progress in the past |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **swim** *in a quote* | past · progressive | British speakers *= speaker* | a action in progress in the past *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme action=Trajectory |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:language:008-tenses-past-present-future.lesson:14`.

**The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/).

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