Talk:Pluperfect tense

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[edit] Merger with Pluperfect

This article need rto be merged with Plupeffect!--Thomas Ruefner 23:04, 4 May 2005 (UTC)—That is Pluperfect of course...--Thomas Ruefner 23:05, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Synthetic Pluperfect in Portuguese

It is true that the synthetic pluperfect is no longer used in spoken Portuguese. However, I would disagree that it is a strictly literary tense. The synthetic pluperfect is indeed very common in literature (novels and poetry), but, surprisingly, even in Brazil, it also appears in printed newspaper, especially in columns and editorials, and sometimes even in news articles. 201.52.32.9 10:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The terms literature and literary do not merely refer to novels and poetry, but to many other, if not all, written forms, such as drama, essays and newspapers. --Panda 15:20, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The Portuguese synthetic pluperfect is still used in the spoken language, in a few set phrases and in some formal registers. FilipeS (talk) 19:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] perfective tense

What is this? It is a phrase that is not defined in A9/ref and which gets me sent to "perfective aspect" in Wik. That article starts out with a very complicated introduction, concluding that there are two different meanings. So, how can some-one reading the pluperfect tense article even begin to understand it, given such a tough term right at the beginning. (In fact, pluperfect isn't such a difficult concept, though.)Kdammers 00:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pluperfect

Your example, "He had risen early that morning and had drunk coffee earlier than usual", is incorrect.

"He rose early that morning and drank coffee earlier than usual", is correct.

The past perfect (pluperfect) connotes that by the time something happened, something else had already happened.

So, "By the time he awakened, his wife had made the coffee", works.

"By the time Sally got home from work, Tom had set the table and opened the wine", also works.

For further clarity, note the following example from the New York Times Style Book.

1.) They dined when the countess arrived.

2.) They had dined when the countess arrived.

In the first sentence, they dined AFTER the countess arrived.

In the second sentence, they dined BEFORE the countess arrived.

The timing distinction is made possible by the proper use of the past perfect.

By the time something happened, something else had already happened.

69.161.24.238 19:08, 26 November 2006 (UTC) Brad Johnston, <bradvines2@yahoo.com>, 26nov06.

Laryngitis makes a false point below. Of course the statement can be extended to make it into something else. If you have enough shoe polish, you can make a polar bear into a brown bear. AS IT STANDS, the "he had risen" statement is incorrect.Bradvines2 (talk) 01:30, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Greetings. In fact, the example sentence is correct, if perhaps a bit awkward.
"He had risen early that morning and had drunk coffee earlier than usual" suggests that his rising and drinking coffee both occurred before some other past event, as in:
"He had risen early that morning and had drunk [his] coffee earlier than usual, knowing that his system would need to be caffeine-free by afternoon. As he brushed his teeth, he reflected that drug testing was more than a little annoying."
(NB: Caffeine in excess of 15 microgm/mL is banned by the NCAA. You'd have to drink around 7-8 cups of coffee to get that much. Ouch.)
You will frequently find examples of the past perfect in well edited narratives written in the past tense (as opposed to those that use the present tense). It might help if you think of the example sentence as an excerpt from a novel.
Laryngitis 03:41, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] pluperfect of state example

I don't understand the following excerpt:

A pluperfect of state is, in association to the actual fact of the action, midway between the past tense (the door opened yesterday) and the predicate adjective that is the past participle (the door was open since yesterday).

I find the door was open since yesterday highly unidiomatic, if not ungrammatical. I am aware that American English sometimes uses the preterite where British English uses the perfect, but I can't see this as an instance. Perhaps it is meant to be:

  • the door has been open since yesterday
  • the door was opened yesterday
  • the door was open yesterday
  • something else?

It is also incorrect to describe open as "the predicate adjective that is the past participle", since the past particle of the verb open is opened. The adjective open is not part of the verb's conjugation and most other English verbs have no analogue to it. jnestorius(talk) 14:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)