complement, phrasal verb or ing participle?

Question

In the sentence "They are holding him back" what's the classification of holding?

Answer 1

If I had to choose only one answer, I would choose phrasal verb because "to hold back" has a different meaning than simply "to hold."

Is it a participle? Not in the strictest sense of the definition of a participle which is a verbal that is used as an adjective or in a participial phrase. For example: the burning bush. The confusion in terminology comes because it is fairly common to see the -ing form of the verb labelled as the present participle in charts and teaching information, maybe even textbooks when showing the different forms of verbs (past, present, etc.)

It is definitely not a complement.

Answer 2

The word "Holding" is the present participle of "To hold." Here, it's forming the present continuous tense with "Are," which is conjugated with the subject "They."

Answer 3

"Are holding" or "is holding" is the present progressive tense of "to hold." The present progressive tense indicates action going on right now. The verb form agrees with the plural subject, which is the pronoun "they."