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Anonymous Posted 13 years ago
Grammar
Long post on past perfect tense
Hi. I believe for noncontinuous verbs and certain mixed verbs, we use them in past perfect situations to show the action or the situation had been continuing up to the time noted.
I also think that it can be the same sometimes for the words like "work" and "study." If you agree with what I said, then how do we know if the action or situation depicted by the past perfect tenses for the words like "work" or "study" had stopped or continued up to the time noted. Are the time phrases like "for the past two years/in the last two years/in the previous two years" needed to discern if the action or situation had been continuing up to the time noted? I think we can substitute the past perfect continuous tense "had been working" for the "had worked" in the example sentence below.
eg,
When he was driving he saw a place he had worked at for the past two years/in the last two years/in the previous two years.
I think the example sentence below (I think it has the noncontinuous verb "be" in the underlined past perfect tense) shows that the person had stopped being the janitor at the time of John Doe seeing the person.
eg,
John Doe saw a person who had been a janitor.
I hope you can help me and thank you for your anticipated help.
I also think that it can be the same sometimes for the words like "work" and "study." If you agree with what I said, then how do we know if the action or situation depicted by the past perfect tenses for the words like "work" or "study" had stopped or continued up to the time noted. Are the time phrases like "for the past two years/in the last two years/in the previous two years" needed to discern if the action or situation had been continuing up to the time noted? I think we can substitute the past perfect continuous tense "had been working" for the "had worked" in the example sentence below.
eg,
When he was driving he saw a place he had worked at for the past two years/in the last two years/in the previous two years.
I think the example sentence below (I think it has the noncontinuous verb "be" in the underlined past perfect tense) shows that the person had stopped being the janitor at the time of John Doe seeing the person.
eg,
John Doe saw a person who had been a janitor.
I hope you can help me and thank you for your anticipated help.
Top answer
Anonymous I believe for noncontinuous verbs and certain mixed verbs, we use them in past perfect situations to show the action or the situation had been continuing up to the time noted. I don't see that as any special situation not applicable to the same verbs in other tenses, in particular present perfect. Anonymous Are the time phrases like "for the past two years/in the last two years/in the previous two years" needed to discern if the action or situation had been continuing up to the time noted?
- Anonymous I believe for noncontinuous verbs and certain mixed verbs, we use them in past perfect situations to show the action or the situation had been continuing up to the time noted.
- I don't see that as any special situation not applicable to the same verbs in other tenses, in particular present perfect.
- Anonymous Are the time phrases like "for the past two years/in the last two years/in the previous two years" needed to discern if the action or situation had been continuing up to the time noted?
- Yes.
- When he was driving, he saw a place he had worked at .
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3 Answers
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AnonymousI believe for noncontinuous verbs and certain mixed verbs, we use them in past perfect situations to show the action or the situation had been continuing up to the time noted.I don't see that as any special situation not applicable to the same verbs in other tenses, in particular present perfect.
AnonymousAre the time phrases
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Hi, Thank you very much.
You wrote:
You wrote:
AnonymousI think the example sentence below shows that the person had stopped being the janitor at the time of John Doe seeing the person.eg,John Doe saw a person who had been a janitor.No, he had stopped being a janitor at some unspecified time in the past before John saw him, that is all. It could have been 50 year
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AnonymousI think the example sentence below ... shows that the person had stopped being the janitor at the time of John Doe's seeing the person.If I may **** in, no, the sentence does not show that. It means only that "the person" was a janitor for some unspecified period of
John Doe saw a person who had been a janitor.
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