I sent Brad as an attachment a copy of Jespersen's Chapter 6 of his third Syntax volume of A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. He excerpted it pretty minimally below, and I thought the full text might be interesting to some on the list as a nuanced treatment of the pluperfect. The text follows. This is scanned OCR text that I have edited to correct OCR errors and formatted to be close to the original.
Herb
The Pluperfect
6.1. The pluperfect (Lat. plusquamperfectum) is the tense-phrase formed by help of the preterit of the
auxiliary had (more rarely was, cf. ch. III) and the second participle. The Joint Committee recommends the term Past Perfect, which I cannot use in this book, as I use the word "past" exclusively for the time relation and not for a grammatical tense.
The pluperfect primarily serves to denote before-past time or a retrospective past-two things which stand in the same relation to each other as the preterit and the perfect, but which cannot easily be kept apart. "His wife left him (last year)", and "his wife has left him" both become "his wife had left. him" when projected into the past.
6.2. The relation between two successive incidents in the past, X and Y, e. g. my seeing him (X) and his
seeing me (Y), may be graphically represented thus
----------X----------Y-----------(now).
Linguistically they may be expressed by means of two preterits:
I saw him (first), and then he saw me-or, combined,
I saw him before he saw me.
But if we use the pluperfect:
I had seen him before he saw me.
I saw him before he had seen me.
He saw me after I had seen him.
He did not see me till I had seen him--the two incidents are grammatically connected by means of the tenses.
6.3. The pluperfect is used both in main sentences and in subordinate clauses; the conjunctions chiefly used are when, after, before, till. A few examples of this tense from Stevenson's T may here suffice:
5 Nor would he allow anyone to leave the inn till he had drunk himself sleepy l 7 At first I had supposed "the dead man's chest" to be that identical big box of his . . . and the thought had been mingled in my nightmares with that of the one-legged seafaring man. But, by this time we had all long ceased to pay any particular notice to the song l 84 before I had heard a dozen words, I would not have shown myself for all the world.
6.4. In clauses beginning with after, we have already seen that the simple preterit often means the same thing as the pluperfect (5.6); I shall here give a few examples of the latter tense, which must be considered the normal tense: Ch T 4.1170 so after that he longe hadde hir compleyned , . . He gan tho teris wypen of ful dreye l More U 28 After that we had once or twise mette . . . they for a certayne space tooke their leaue of vs I Di P 327 Now, said Wardle, after a substantial lunch . . . had been done ample justice to l ib 341 within ten minutes after he had received the assurance that the thing was impossible, he was conducted into the outer office | Bennett Cd 204 And after they had chatted a little . . . he offered to display Machin House to Mr. Myson.
On clauses with since see 5.8(3).
After when the simple preterit can sometimes be used, though the two events mentioned follow one after the other, and the preterit is thus equivalent to a pluperfect: When he came back from India, he was made a member of Parliament I When he got the letter, he burned it without looking at it.
But this is not always possible; the pluperfect is required in: When he had read the letter, he burned it I When he had finished writing that book, he took a long rest.
We may say either: "As soon as he discovered them, he ran away", and "As soon as he had discovered them, he ran away".
In the following two quotations, the use of the pluperfect in the when-clauses, where the simple preterit would have been normal, seems to have been induced by the pluperfect in the main sentence: Hardy R 374 when his mind had been weaker his heart had led him to speak out I Rose Macaulay P 8 When they had been little they had watched each other's plates with hostile eyes.
6.5. We may have two successive pluperfects as in Thompson H Spencer 34 as two and a half years had
elapsed since he had made any money, Spencer returned to London.
(This, transposed into the present time, would be: two and a half years have elapsed since he made any money).
6.6. Note the use for past time in Stevenson T 152 "I had soon told my story" = I told my story, and that
did not take long: the speaker anticipates the time when the incident he is relating is already finished. Similarly in Rose Macaulay P 133 A little later, when she had revived, we had had tea together, and I had put a few questions to her I Maugham Painted V. 240 she left the room. In a moment Sister St. Joseph came in. She was come to say good-bye. [Or this is probably represented speech: she said she was come] I James RH 18 In the evening, as he was smoking his cigar on the verandah, a light quick step pressed the gravel of the gardenˇpath, and in a moment a young man, rising before them, had
made his bow to Cecilia. Cf. 3.3(7).
6.7. The pluperfect had hoped does not always refer to the before-past time, but often is temporally the same as the preterit hoped, only it implies that the (past) hope was not fulfilled; "We had hoped he would recover" (but he did not). If we say "We hoped he would recover" we leave the question open whether he recovered or not. Cf. the use of the perfect infinitive after hoped and thought, below 10.7.
Sh Ado V. 4.114 I had well hop'd thou wouldst haue denied Beatrice [but in the same sense Hml V. 1.267 I hop'd thou should'st haue bin my Hamlets wife: I thought thy bride-bed to haue deckt (sweet maid) And not t'haue strew'd thy graue] ] Collins W 72 I had hoped that all painful subjects of conversation were exhausted between us | id M 331 I had hoped to hear that things were all smooth and pleasant again.
This had hoped may be followed by the perfect infinitive (cf. 10.7): Lamb R 37 I had hoped to have seen
you at our house | Collins M 182 I had hoped to have recompensed your services, and to have parted with you without Miss Verinder's name having been openly mentioned between us [ Swinb Ii 108 I had hoped to have seen you and Clara pull together.
Cp. the pluperfect in speaking indefinitely of the past: I hadn't expected that.
Cf. the use of could have hoped instead of the impossible had could hope (si j'avais pu espérer) in Di D 170 If I could have hoped that Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until he came out alone.
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brad Johnston
Sent: 2009-04-11 15:09
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Exhibit #104, Jespersen's Modern English Grammar
This is for everyone's eyes except Herb. He's in the penalty box, pending his release of his definition.
A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, c.1932.
by Otto Jespersen (1860 - 1943)
Part IV, Syntax, Third Volume, pp. 81-84.
6.4 The pluperfect is used both in main sentences and in subordinate clauses; the conjunctions chiefly used are: when, after, before, till. A few examples of this tense from Stevenson's T may here suffice:
~ examples
After when, the simple preterit can sometimes be used, though the two events mentioned follow one after the other, and the preterit is thus equivalent to a pluperfect.
~ examples
In the following quotation, the use of the pluperfect in the when-clause, where the simple preterit would have been normal, seems to have been induced by the pluperfect in the main sentence.
When they had been little they had watched each other's plates with hostile eyes.
(Shades of Huddleston's, "When Arthur had been a boy he had used to play football". One might wonder who copied from whom. Get the knuckle-rapper.)
This is Exhibit #104 to my assertion that there is at least one past perfect error on any grammar website or in any grammar textbook you can name. Challenges are welcome, encouraged, and appreciated.
.brad.11apr09.
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/