PRESENT PERFECT AND PROGRESSIVE ASPECTS COMBINED
When these two aspects combine in one VG, the progressive brings into focus the continuous nature of the situation, whereas the Perfect leads the situation from an indefinite time in the past up to the present, usually to speech time. The possible situations include:
(a) continuous state lasting up to the present
I have been wanting to meet him for ages.
He has been hearing better since he started using the hearing-aid
(b) continuous habitual process
The government has been spending beyond its means. [416]
Leo, now eight, has been skiing for only two years.
(c) iterative occurrence lasting up to the present
You have been coughing since you got up.
(d) unbounded situations lasting up to the present
We have been waiting here for some time.
(e) normally bounded situations become unbounded
I have been fixing the lamp.
So people have been taping this talk?
The non-progressive forms would remain bounded: I have fixed the lamp, So people have taped this talk?
The Past Perfect Progressive combines the anteriority of the Past Perfect with the features of the Progressive:
He had been seeing her quite a lot at that time.
The unbounded result does not necessarily mean that the event was not completed; simply that the Perfect Progressive concentrates on the internal phase of the process.
