Hi,

A minor point came up that I couldn't answer in my English class, so I told
the kids I'd go right to the experts.

We've been studying verb tenses in my sixth grade class with an eye to their
effect on writing.  I asked them to write a half-page narrative using as much
progressive tense as they could (I wanted them to notice what it did to
"voice").  We were looking at the sentences today, and I didn't know what to
call the verb phrase in the following:

The children should have been eating.

It's present perfect progressive, but does adding the modal change it to
something else?  For that matter, does adding a modal change the name of any
tense?

Thanks,
Gretchen in San Jose
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