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Anonymous Posted 13 years ago
Grammar
Present Perfect or Past Perfect
Hi all, I have a little question about the whether it would be more correct to use the present perfect or past perfect in the following sentence.
"I visited my home town last summer. They'd made a lot of changes. They'd built a new hotel, they'd put up a statue in the square and my cousin had become mayor."
OR
"I visited my home town last summer. They've made a lot of changes. They've built a new hotel, they've put up a statue in the square and my cousin has become mayor."
My confusion stems from the fact that while the events are being recounted in relation to another past event (me visiting last summer) and thus warranting past perfect, the events are still "related to the present" in the sense that the changes still exist now.
Would this be a case where either the past perfect or the present perfect could be used, depending on what i wanted to emphasize?
Thanks in advance, and death to perfect tenses!
Bill
"I visited my home town last summer. They'd made a lot of changes. They'd built a new hotel, they'd put up a statue in the square and my cousin had become mayor."
OR
"I visited my home town last summer. They've made a lot of changes. They've built a new hotel, they've put up a statue in the square and my cousin has become mayor."
My confusion stems from the fact that while the events are being recounted in relation to another past event (me visiting last summer) and thus warranting past perfect, the events are still "related to the present" in the sense that the changes still exist now.
Would this be a case where either the past perfect or the present perfect could be used, depending on what i wanted to emphasize?
Thanks in advance, and death to perfect tenses!
Bill
Top answer
Yes.
- Yes.
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2 Answers
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Anonymous"I visited my home town last summer. They've made a lot of changes. They've built a new hotel, they've put up a statue in the square and my cousin has become mayor.""I visited my home town last summer. There have been a lot of changes. They've built a new hotel and put up a statue in the square, and my cousin has become [the] mayor."
When yo
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