In the sentence: "The sun was setting when they left the beach to make camp," are the words "was setting" past participle, present participle, infinitive or past tense? Why?

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Answer 1 · 2016-09-17T09:42:05

Was setting is Past (Continuous) tense.

The phrase was setting is a form of Past Cotinuous (also called Past Progressive) tense.

This tense is used to tell about action in the past which take some time (unlike those described in Past Simple).

Word setting alone is present participle,