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Moon7296 Posted 12 years ago
Grammar
as soon as / no sooner ... than
1. No sooner had Tim left than the phone rang.
2. As soon as Tim left, the phone rang.
3. No sooner had he gone to bed than he heard the strange sound.
4. As soon as he went to bed, he heard the strange sound.
Q1) The meanings between #1 and #2, and between #3 and #4 are the same, aren't they?
Q2) My student asked why, in #2 and #4, the tense is not the same as #1 and #3. Why does the past perfect come when the verb is the simple past tense in #2 and #4?
Can anyone explain that?
2. As soon as Tim left, the phone rang.
3. No sooner had he gone to bed than he heard the strange sound.
4. As soon as he went to bed, he heard the strange sound.
Q1) The meanings between #1 and #2, and between #3 and #4 are the same, aren't they?
Q2) My student asked why, in #2 and #4, the tense is not the same as #1 and #3. Why does the past perfect come when the verb is the simple past tense in #2 and #4?
Can anyone explain that?
Top answer
moon7296 Why does the past perfect come when the verb is the simple past tense in #2 and #4? I think that's because when past perfect is used in combination with past simple, that's to clear the order of the events in the past or to emphasize which of the two events in the past happened / occurred earlier. You can also use the past simple in that construction where the 'past perfect' is used, for example, you could say No sooner did Tim leave than the phone rang OR No sooner did he go to bed than he heard a strange sound.
- moon7296 Why does the past perfect come when the verb is the simple past tense in #2 and #4?
- I think that's because when past perfect is used in combination with past simple, that's to clear the order of the events in the past or to emphasize which of the two events in the past happened / occurred earlier.
- You can also use the past simple in that construction where the 'past perfect' is used, for example, you could say No sooner did Tim leave than the phone rang OR No sooner did he go to bed than he heard a strange sound.
- ".
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4 Answers
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moon7296Why does the past perfect come when the verb is the simple past tense in #2 and #4?I think that's because when past perfect is used in combination with past simple, that's to clear the order of the events in the past or to emphasize which of the two events in the past happened / occurred earlier.
You can also use the past simpl
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LaboriousYou can also use the past simple in that construction where the 'past perfect' is used, for example, you could say No sooner did Tim leave than the phone rangOh, really? Yesterday, I saw one pdf file that says in that kind of structure only past perfect(had + a participle) comes. How should I take this "no sooner" structure?
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In "no sooner (past perfect) ... than (simple past)", we are just describing the order of events in the past.
For example, in your "No sooner had Tim left than the phone rang", you're describing the order of those two events, i.e., what happened first, what happened second...
"No sooner had Tim left than the phone rang" simply means that Tim left, and right a
For example, in your "No sooner had Tim left than the phone rang", you're describing the order of those two events, i.e., what happened first, what happened second...
"No sooner had Tim left than the phone rang" simply means that Tim left, and right a
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