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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Grammar
Simple Past Tense Vs Perfect Past Tense
Can any guru explain why simple past tense but not perfect past tense should be used here?
-His studies of ice-polished rocks in his Alpine homeland, far outside the range of present-day glaciers, led Louis Ahassiz in 1837 to propose the concept of an age in which great ice sheets existed in what are now temperate areas.
Why not use had existed? Isn't it the great ice sheets had existed before Louis Ahassiz proposed the concept?
Please help out! Thank you very much.
-His studies of ice-polished rocks in his Alpine homeland, far outside the range of present-day glaciers, led Louis Ahassiz in 1837 to propose the concept of an age in which great ice sheets existed in what are now temperate areas.
Why not use had existed? Isn't it the great ice sheets had existed before Louis Ahassiz proposed the concept?
Please help out! Thank you very much.
Top answer
Anonymous Why not use had existed? There is so much other information in the sentence that makes it clear that the ice sheets would have existed before Ahassiz made his proposal -- not to mention that common sense alone is enough -- that there is no need to clarify the time sequence with a past perfect tense. The past substitutes for the past perfect whenever other factors make the time sequence clear.
- Anonymous Why not use had existed?
- There is so much other information in the sentence that makes it clear that the ice sheets would have existed before Ahassiz made his proposal -- not to mention that common sense alone is enough -- that there is no need to clarify the time sequence with a past perfect tense.
- The past substitutes for the past perfect whenever other factors make the time sequence clear.
- CJ
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1 Answers
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AnonymousWhy not use had existed?There is so much other information in the sentence that makes it clear that the ice sheets would have existed before Ahassiz made his proposal -- not to mention that common sense alone is enough -- that there is no need to clarify the time sequence with a past perfect tense. The past substitutes for the past perfect whenever
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