Example sentences of "they [vb past] been [v-ing] [adv] [prep] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | They 'd been living together for many years . |
| 2 | They might just possibly have been able to find the morning 's path if they 'd been starting again from the road , but tracking backwards was incredibly difficult . |
| 3 | He had a feeling that they 'd been waiting right from the start of the trip . |
| 4 | Friends say they had been looking forward to the holiday for months . |
| 5 | They had been moving steadily through a very thick part of the forest in which it was impossible to maintain a constant direction for more than a few paces . |
| 6 | The authorities claimed that they had been living illegally on land which had been allocated to others , in Khartoum suburbs such as Karmuta where large numbers of mud-brick houses had reportedly now been vacated and then destroyed by bulldozers . |
| 7 | They had been living together across the colour bar for the best part of 30 years . |
| 8 | Now there is nothing to prevent plural continuation here ( e.g. They had been working hard for hours ) , but the incidence of such continuations was less than 5% , and continuations mostly were confined to singular references with individuals being in relatively stereotypical roles with respect to each other . |
| 9 | ‘ She said she had known for some time that she and Fabien could not remain at La Tour Monchauzet after their marriage — that they had been talking together about moving away — of going , perhaps , as far as Australia or California and starting a totally new life . |
| 10 | One afternoon , after they had been travelling together for several days , Cleo ordered Dauntless to pull Contralto to a halt . |
| 11 | But they had been saying so for years , for more than a decade now . |
| 12 | Covertly , leaning far back in his chair , he watched McQuaid from under hooded eyelids : in all the years they had been coming together on Monaghan Day McQuaid had always spent the night in the house . |
| 13 | They had been driving northwards from Copenhagen for half an hour along the beach road when Rune posed the question . |
| 14 | They had been sitting together at the top of their organisations throughout the years of cut-backs . |