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Appropriate Use of Being

English Language & Usage Asked on March 28, 2021

Please have a look on this paragraph

"There were some residential quarters in the elevated land area being occupied by government employee. The surrounding was bushy having some trees and commonly inaccessible to the area. One day, a person could notice some skeletal remains lying on the ground under a tree and reported to the police. On having the information, the police and forensic team visited the spot. The spot was almost undisturbed and as per statement of the informer, skull and some bones were found lying under the tree at one place on the ground. On further search, a pair of plastic slipper was kept near the foot of the tree, apparently kept before climbing in bare foot. On further search, a long bone, a torn pant (wearing apparel) and a portion of rope being tied with one of its end in a branch of the tree were also noticed. All the items were brought down for further examination to derive the information contained in them. In course of examination, one cell phone was also found kept inside the pocket of the damaged pant. All the physical evidence was collected for further investigation in this case."

This paragraph is describing a past event.
Then why BEING OCCUPIRD and BEING TIED is used in this context?enter image description here

2 Answers

If the OP can relate the following to what he is looking for...!

//There were some residential quarters in the elevated land area being occupied by government employee.// Here, it means, "...elevated land area which is being occupied by government employee..." In other words, it can be written in the active voice as, "There were some residential quarters in the elevated land area that the government employee is occupying."

Grammatical interpretations apart, it means that the land are is in an 'occupied stage' by the govt employee.

BEING is the continuous form of BE

He is being…(It is like, He is studying)/ He was being…(It is like, He was studying) / He will be (being)…(It is like, He will be studying)

He is being a doctor…; He was being a doctor…; He will be (being) a doctor…

IN PASSIVE VOICE: is carrying – is being carried

He is hunting a wild cat. / A wild cat is being hunted by him.

I am writing a letter. / A letter is being written by me.

AS PARTICIPLES

Being a police officer, I had to take action. Being a student, I had to study a lot.

Answered by Ram Pillai on March 28, 2021

Being occupied and being tied are used as participles in these sentences.

As I said in this answer, the participles are not only present participles and past participles, but various participial constructions (in that answer I called them compound participles) that can be used pretty much in the same way as present and past participles. Your being occupied and being tied are examples of such participial constructions too.

In your example these participles (more precisely, participial phrases in which these participles are headwords) are used to get rid of the relative clauses and thus make the sentence shorter (as is the case with the question to which I answered with the answer mentioned above). For example, the sentence

There were some residential quarters in the elevated land area being occupied by government employee.

is a shorthand for a "full" sentence that is using a relative clause:

There were some residential quarters in the elevated land area that was being occupied by government employee.

So, here the participle phrase being occupied by government employee is used instead a relative clause that was being occupied by government employee.

Regarding the fact that this paragraph is about the past - there are no restrictions to which time the sentence should refer to be able to contain the participle. The time of a participle is understood to be the same as the time of the main clause of the sentence in which this participle is used. In your examples this time is past.

Answered by RussoTuristo on March 28, 2021

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