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Can the passive voice be correctly used for sentences in the Present Perfect Continuous tense?

I understand Present Perfect and its passive voice (have/has built, has been built). However, the passive voice of Present Perfect Continuous is unclear:

Active: They have been building this house for years. Passive: ???

I have seen suggestions of "This house has been being built for years." but it sounds awkward and I don't recall anywhere else where two "be" verbs follow one another. Is this the grammatically correct form?

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4 Answers

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I think "has been being built" is grammatical, but few people would say it. I think most people would use the impersonal active form you gave.

An alternative in some dialects is "This has has been a-building for years", but that's not in any standard variety as far as I know.

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To bolster this case, if you use Google ngrams on 'has been being', the most recent hits show on the first page almost all references to 'has been being' being used or discussed in terms of English grammar (for EFL) or linguistics. That is, it is an academic exercise to use it, but no one for real uses it, and would naturally use an active instead. – Mitch Jul 27 '11 at 13:52
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Yes, the passive past perfect continuous is sometimes cited as being a relatively recent innovation in English (cf Mair & Leech, "Current Changes in English Syntax" in The Handbook of English Linguistics, Blackwell, p. 320) and isn't so common, though possibly on the rise. A similar observation is made about some other passive constructions, e.g. modal continuous passives ("would be being built").

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"This house has been in the building process for years."

Sounds more natural than

"This house has been being built for years."

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"This house has been being built for years" is perfectly grammatical and contrary to what @Colin Fine says, many people would normally use it. There isn't any real alternative, so if one needs to express what the sentence says, they must use this tense. Get down to reading books and the tense will not sound awkward in no time.

Compare the following:

I've been being shot at.
I've been shot at.

The second sentence doesn't really make any sense. You may say that "you've been shot", but that's totally different, naturally. There's no alternative to "I've been being shot at."

UPDATE!

Some people obviously don't understand the meaning behind those two sentences, so I'm updating my answer to explain myself.

Past: They shot me!
Present perfect: I've been shot!
This sentence has no present perfect continuous, because it's not a continuous action!

Going on ...

Past: They were shooting at me!
Present perfect continuous: I've been being shot at!
This is the only way to express the continuous action in present perfect (continuous)!

Another example that came to my mind while my answer has been being updated ... is ... uhm ... already expressed :)

For all the native speakers who would never use this tense: learn the language better and stop using the native speaker card, it's useless...

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A native speaker would say "I've been shot at." Never the other one. Search for it on google, this is the only hit! – z7sg Ѫ Jul 27 '11 at 11:21
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I've been shot at is what someone might cry when they've just been shot at. I've been being shot at is what someone could say if they've been asked what they've been doing all day (for example) – Matt Эллен Jul 27 '11 at 12:43
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@JSBangs: I don't see anything strict about Colin's answer, in fact it is quite lenient, being pretty open to alternatives just noting the frequency of use. – Mitch Jul 27 '11 at 13:40
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Whatever the intended meaning of your examples, and whatever the grammaticality of them (I find them both strictly grammatical (but only given the conversation...I would have thought the first ungrammatical if found in the wild), the first is hard to parse, and the second is easy. – Mitch Jul 27 '11 at 13:42
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It may be strictly grammatical, and it may express a situation with slightly greater precision if you use both of these tenses—but why must language always be able to express everything without ambiguity in a short word or phrase? I contend that we do not really need this precision here, and that most people use has been shot at for both, context filling in the rest. Besides, it is not frequently used, probably because many people find it ugly. That should count for something: language is not only a tool. – Cerberus Jul 27 '11 at 15:49
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