backshift of zero or first conditional?

Question

0  1) Hi, Please tell me if this is a backshift of a zero or first  conditional. Is backshifting of zero or first conditional OK???  If he did write the book, it was after the last remaining people fled to XXX and after a long journey to the land of ...  2)  Is this kind of mixing of  past perfect and past allowed???  He discovered that the promise was broken, schools were distroyed, people had gone to other lands, and the leaders had become corrupt.  0-

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

0 01blockquote

01cite10Anonymous12cite10If he did write the book, it was after the last remaining people fled to *** and after a long journey to the land of ... 12blockquote

10 It's a "backshift of a zero conditional". That is, it's a conditional with a simple past in both clauses. (By the way, I like to give this conditional the name "the detective conditional" because it sounds like a detective is deducing facts from some evidence he has discovered. This is 01u00not02u00 a standard grammatical term, however!!!)01blockquote

01cite10Anonymous12cite10Is this kind of mixing of past perfect and past allowed??? He discovered that the promise was broken, schools were d11font10[ e ]12font10stroyed, people had gone to other lands, and the leaders had become corrupt.12blockquote

10 Yes. It's quite natural and common to mix these two tenses.02br
00CJ 0-

Anonymous · Answer

0Thank you.  I may be naive to ask you this: What is the reason to shift-back further only the following two events and leave the other two events just once back (as it seems -- I don't how many times back since the past can go back far in the past with the ability to accommadate how many ever times back intact)????  He discovered that the promise was broken, schools were d[ e ]stroyed, people had gone to other lands, and the leaders had become corrupt.  How about here??? Why use a past perfect in one and not in the other?? (I didn't see any context for further mentioning of development in the text)  When he arrived, it had developed into ***, and they became his worst enemies. 0-

Marius Hancu · Answer

0 You can't go back too many times. Choose a critical moment/event in the past: everything earlier than that should be past perfect. 02br
01i00When he 01b00arrived02b00, it 01b00had developed02b00 into ***, and they 01b00became02b00 his worst enemies.02i02br
00This is correct. Only what ("it") developed before his arrival is past perfect. Those events before his arrival constituted the basis of their conflict, after that everything goes simple perfect. 0-

CalifJim · Answer

0 01blockquote

01cite10Anonymous12cite10He discovered that the promise was broken, schools were d[ e ]stroyed, people had gone to other lands, and the leaders had become corrupt. How about here??? Why use a past perfect in one and not in the other?? 12blockquote

10 Excellent question.02br
00This has to be read as an enumeration of four states that were discovered.02br
01i001. The promise was (in the state of being) broken. 02i00 (Not the event: Someone broke the promise.)02br
01i002. Schools were (in the state of being) destroyed. 02i00( Schools appeared to be in ruins. -- Not the event: Someone destroyed schools.) 02br
01i003. 02i00 [ People were not there anymore (state, the result of an event, not an event) because ] 01i00they had 02i00(previously)01i00 gone to other lands. 02i00(event)02br
01i004. 02i00[ Leaders were corrupt (state, the result of an event, not an event) because ] 01i00they had 02i00(previously)01i00 become corrupt. 02i00(event)02br
00It was simply the choice of the author to present the facts in this way. We may disagree about whether this was the clearest, most effective way to present the facts, but that is the way he chose.02br
02br
00CJ 0-

backshift of zero or first conditional?

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