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be going to do - what's the general form?

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:37 pm
by googl
Which of the forms are correct?

1. I am going to have done
2. I am going to be doing
3. I am going to have been doing
4. I was going to have done
5. I was going to be doing
6. I was going to have been doing
7. I have been going to have done
8. I have been going to be doing
9. I have been going to have been doing
10. I had been going to do
11. I had been going to have done
12. I had been going to be doing
13. I had been going to have been doing
14. He can be going to do something

Are there any other modal verbs, aspects or forms (aside from passive and causative) in which "be going to do" is used?

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:00 am
by Alan
All are theoretically possible, but the majority (especially #7-9) would almost never occur in practice. The only constructions that you are likely to encounter with any degree of frequency are #1, 2 & 10. I would not concern yourself with the rest!

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 6:58 am
by googl
I forgot: is it (GRAMATICALLY not PRACTICALLY) possible:

I will have been going to have been done (??? - be going to do with the "going to" in Future Perfect Continuous and the verb in Perfect Continuous)? If so, then am I right that there are THEORETICALLY 12 (modal verbs + am/was) * 4 (going to do aspects) * 4 (verb aspects) = 192 forms of "be going to do"?

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:32 am
by Alan
Perhaps, I've never counted!

Calculating theoretically possible numbers of tense-forms where many are so strange/unidiomatic as perhaps never to have been used by any native speaker in the history of the language is an exercise of questionable usefulness.

Sorry, but I'm closing this thread!