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An action prior to another past action
E.g. During their conversation, she realized that she had met Mr. Johnson before.
‘As I was walking to the station it began to rain. Fortunately, I had taken my umbrella.’
NOTE 1. The Past Perfect can also be used in adverbial clauses of time introduced by the conjunctions when, after, as soon as, till/until, before to express an action which happened before another past action.
E.g. We went to bed as soon as our guests had left.
To emphasize that the action of the principal clause is the result of the action of the subordinate clause we prefer the Past Indefinite for both.
E.g. She become famous after she appeared on TV.
(She appeared on TV (1) and as a result became famous (2).)
NOTE 2. The Past Perfect is often used with the conjunctions hardly…when/before, scarcely…when/before, no sooner…than to suggest that one action happened very soon after another.
E.g. He had hardly closed his eyes when the phone rang.
The mother had scarcely entered the house before the children began screaming.
I had no sooner locked the door than somebody knocked.
In a formal or literary style, for the sake of emphasis, inverted word order is possible.
E.g. Hardly had he closed his eyes when the phone rang.
An action which began before a definite moment in the past, continued up to that moment and was still in progress at that moment
· This use of the Past Perfect we call the Past Perfect Inclusive.
· The preposition FOR denotes the whole period of duration of the action.
· SINCE denotes the starting point of the action.
| E.g. | for two years. |
| He said he hadn’t seen Bob | since 2005. |
| since. |
NOTE 3. Mind the use of the Past Perfect with the following structures: It/That was the first/second/third/only/best/worst…that… .
E.g. It was the first time that he had heard Sarah sing.
That was the fifth time that the teacher had asked the same question.
It was the worst film I’d ever seen.
| THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PAST INDEFINITE AND |
| THE PAST PERFECT |
| The Past Indefinite | The Past Perfect |
| 1. denotes a succession of past actions; | 1. denotes an action completed before a definite moment in the past or another past action; |
| E.g. I met Tom in 2005, moved to London and saw him again yesterday. | E.g. I saw Tom yesterday and remembered that I had met him before. |
| 2. are used in principal clauses | |
| · when actions in both clauses are practically simultaneous; | · when the action of the principal clause was completed before the action of the subordinate clause; |
| E.g. When the doctor arrived, the patient died. (=The patient died at the time or just after the doctor arrived.) | E.g. When the doctor arrived, the patient had died. (=The patient had been dead when the doctor arrived.) |
| 3. are used in adverbial clauses of time after the conjunctions after, when, before, etc. | |
| · when actions in both clauses are simultaneous or when the action of the principal clause is the result of the action of the subordinate clause. | · when the action of the subordinate clause was completed before the action of the principal clause. |
| E.g. When she came, she gave me the letter. | E.g. When she had left, I read the letter. |
| THE PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS TENSE |
| (THE PAST PERFECT PROGRESSIVE) |
Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1343