I need my sentence to be past tense third person. I know my main verb 'caused' is past tense, but the 'prime acting citizens' phrase is confusing me since 'acting' ends in 'ing', which is not past tense. Do I need to change it to make it past tense?
Rules caused stress upon prime acting citizens and upon businesses.
prime-acting is an adjective modifying citizens in this sentence.
The verb is "caused," and it's in the past tense.
To make your sentence past tense in the third person, you would need to change the present tense verb "caused" to its past tense form, which is "caused." However, the phrase "prime acting citizens" is already in the past tense, so you do not need to change it. The word "acting" in this context is not functioning as a verb, but as an adjective modifying the noun "citizens." Therefore, you do not need to modify the phrase to make it past tense. Your revised sentence would be:
"Rules caused stress upon prime acting citizens and upon businesses."