Lament bass

The lament bass is a progression, popular during the Baroque period, whereby the bass line descends by step from the tonic to the dominant; it is most commonly used in the minor key. The intervening bass notes can be harmonized in different ways and/or the bass line can be chromatically filled. Whichever the situation, functionally speaking, the progression is moving from T to D. There is no need to determine the PD, all the harmonies in between the starting tonic chord and the end-point dominant can be simply regarded as passing harmonies; diagrammatically, we use a horizontal arrow to signify.

e.g.

Some examples from Harmony in Context

Ex. E.5 - bs. 15-16