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In this sentence why the ing form of the verb is used instead of past tense?

Germany’s rate increased sharply throughout the period, exceeding France’s rate in 2009 and reaching almost 60% in the end of period.

Could we rewrite it in another way instead of ing form?

Eddie Kal
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Question
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    You could change to exceeded and reached if you like. It would mean the same. – mdewey Dec 03 '20 at 14:35
  • @mdeway why the ing form is used? Is it continues form? If yes where is the “was” ? – Question Dec 03 '20 at 23:08
  • "He stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him." The door-slamming happened as part of the action of storming out. Germany exceeding France's rate was a part of the process of its rate increasing. – Kate Bunting Dec 04 '20 at 10:57

2 Answers2

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The clauses exceeding France’s rate in 2009 and reaching almost 60% in the end of period are not "continuous" or any other tense.

They are non-finite clauses, used adverbially.

I can see how you might have confused them with "continuous tense", because these use the same "-ing" form of the verb, but it is different in construction and meaning.

You can often (but not always) replace them with and and a finite clause with the same tense as the parent clause. You can do so here: and exceeded France's rate in 2009 and reached almost %60 in the end of period.

By the way, in the end of period is either a mistake, or a sign that this was not written by a native English speaker. At the end of the period or by the end of the period would be normal, depending on the precise meaning intended.

Colin Fine
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  • Is this participle clause which added information about subject to avoid repetition? – Question Dec 03 '20 at 23:42
  • "You can often (but not always) replace them with and and a finite clause with the same tense as the parent clause." Writing and and and distinguishing and and and just with italics is confusing. – Acccumulation Dec 04 '20 at 01:53
  • @Question: as I said, these could have been added as further finite clauses with "and". Writing them as adverbial "-ing" clauses is a little more elegant, but has no singinificant difference in meaning. – Colin Fine Dec 04 '20 at 16:35
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"Reaching" was used because it was in the process of reaching 60%, the ing form was used to indicate continuation at the time of writing.

If "reached" were used, it would mean it had stopped entirely.

FalaGringo
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