"Bhagya also did not report to work for five days prior to the complaint being filed against her."
Dear Sir
In the above sentence, why did they use "being"? Is it the replacement of "was"?
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The reason why "being" is used is that "prior to" is a prepositional phrase, which takes "the V-ing clause with its own notional subject" as its nominal object, that is, "prior to" the complaint being filed against her." If "was" is used, the sentence reads "prior to the complaint was filed against her," and is grammatically wrong. If you'd like to use "was", it should be rewritten as "Bhagya also did not report to work for five days before (conjunction) the complaint was filed against her."
Hi, Sundaran—I agree with f6pafd's answer. It may help you to know that "prior to the complaint being filed against her" can be rephrased as "prior to the complaint's being filed against her" (possessive), where "the complaint's being filed against her" functions as a noun phrase, the object of the preposition "to."
David & f6pafd
In the above sentence, Is "BEING" used as a passive sentence?
f6pafd,
you told "prior to" is a prepositional pharse. What sort of prepositional pharse is this? Adjective prepositional pharse or adverb prepositional pharse?
Yes. However, The correct way of saying it is "the passive form of the V-ing with its notional subject used as the nominal object of the preposition." As the main verb of the sentence is "REPORT," which is in the active voice, the sentence should not be considered a passive one. The prepositional phrase is used as an adverbial of time.
