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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Past perfect

Hello, I would like to ask you about the following sentences which I found:

Jane was annoyed. Tom had been phoning her every day for the whole week.

I had worked hard all year, so I felt that I deserved a holiday.

We had been driving for an hour when the engine stopped.

Is the past perfect simple and progressive obligatory in the given sentences or can we also use the past simple instead?

Thank you
  

Top answer

-- Simple past is possible in #2; it hardly seems so in #1 and it is impossible in #3.

— Mister Micawber

  • -- Simple past is possible in #2; it hardly seems so in #1 and it is impossible in #3.
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3 Answers
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Is the past perfect simple or progressive obligatory in the given sentences or can we also use the past simple instead?-- Simple past is possible in #2; it hardly seems so in #1 and it is impossible in #3.
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AnonymousIs the past perfect simple and progressive obligatory in the given sentences or can we also use the past simple instead?
You might use the simple past in the middle one, but the others won't work.

You certainly can't use the past progressive in the first and last sentences because of the for-phrase (if that's part of what you'r
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