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Which one is correct? I know the present perfect continuous tense is for what. My question is here that we should use that tense when we want to say "I was here (a city) for ten years and now I am here as well" we must use the present perfect continuous but we use the present perfect (I've seen in the grammar books):

I have been here for ten years.

vs.

I have been being here for ten years.

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  • I have been being is not correct English.
    – anouk
    Mar 16 '19 at 22:02
  • @anouk please explain more. How can we convert this sentence to the present perfect continuous type? "I am here."
    – M. Afrashteh
    Mar 16 '19 at 22:04
  • I have been here for 10 years is the correct sentence.
    – anouk
    Mar 16 '19 at 22:08
  • @anouk it is in the present perfect tense. But being here started ten years ago and it still continues. This definition is exactly about the present perfect continuous.
    – M. Afrashteh
    Mar 16 '19 at 22:12
  • whether used in the present perfect simple or continuous "to be" becomes "has been", not has been being.
    – anouk
    Mar 16 '19 at 22:19
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I have been being here is not idiomatic.

You have probably learned that there is a category of verbs which are only very rarely used in with the progressive/continuous construction: stative verbs like be, know, live, see which express a state rather than an action or event. These verbs have the fundamental sense of a continuing state (which is what the progressive/continuous construction expresses) built into their meanings, so the progressive/continuous is superfluous.

For the same reason these verbs are rarely used with the progressive/continuous perfect construction. Indeed, there is even stronger pressure to avoid the progressive/continuous perfect, because the perfect is also inherently stative: it designates a state which came into being as a result of a prior action or event.

Saying I have been being here for ten years thus adds nothing to the sense of I have been being here for ten years, so we don't say it.

Furthermore: These "rules", like most "rules" of grammar, are not absolute: there are exceptions. But lexical be (that is, be as a main verb, not a component of the progressive or passive construction) is exceptionally resistant to exception, because it is the most "stative" of verbs: it ordinarily expresses nothing beyond a particular state. In consequence, when lexical be is cast in the progressive construction it usually has a different meaning, approximately "temporarily behave":

"John is being a jerk" does not mean that John is a jerk but that John is behaving like a jerk right now.

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  • As you have said, "John is being a jerk" usually carries an idiomatic meaning equivalent to "John is behaving like a jerk." Yet picture the following exchange of dialogue: "Are you all so invested in your uninterrupted communion with the Eternal Now that your only behaviors are ongoing existential fulfillments of your individual states of being, relative to those around you?" "Yes. Caroline is being a mother. Hillary is being a diva. John is being a jerk." This is an example of the unusual stative usage.
    – Jesse Berry
    Aug 7 '21 at 19:43
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I have been being here for ten years.

While I believe this is technically grammatical (in terms of syntax alone), it is essentially never used, and so is ungrammatical for all practical purposes.

You can, however, use a different verb that would impart almost the same meaning and be acceptable:

I have been existing here for ten years.

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