>> I have seen the "had-for-did" error described as an optional "back-shifting."
"Back-shifting" is a convention, if it's anything, and has no inherent meaning. (Surely it was propounded by a graduate student fulfilling a requirement to produce some number of words for a thesis.) The only change back-shifting can convey is to make correct into incorrect.
To write "The president said he hoped (in compliance with the convention) the North Koreans will not do anything to escalate tensions in the region", is to misrepresent, unless the president only hoped it prior to saying it and did not mean to imply that he would care in an hour or a week or a month.
He said he hopes the North Korean will not escalate. That's what he said and that's what he meant. He didn't want them to escalate yesterday and he doesn't want them to escalate today or tomorrow or the next day. Why do we let a meaningless rule interfere with complete and correct understanding? Back-shifting misleads. It should not be tolerated and it certainly should not be taught to an unsuspecting student, who feels an obligation to ingest whatever is thrown his way. As a professor of mine used to say, "scribble, scribble, scribble", i.e, the sound of students taking down the wisdom of their elders, however wanting it may be.
Sidebar: Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, illustrating back-shifting in "A Student's Introduction to English Grammar", c.2005, wrote, "I told Stacy that Kim had blue eyes" [but now they're brown]. Even if it's written by famous people, don't be buffaloed. (The words added to the quote are mine and show how ridiculous back-shifting can be.) The authors go on to explain that it is "often" optional, whatever that means except that they weren't able to make up their minds.
>> This, then, is taken as the origin of the "past perfect."
WHAT, then, is taken as the origin of the past perfect? Back-shifting gives rise to the past perfect? Hardly.
>> and some might allow only the present perfect to have a past perfect.
I wonder what this means. The past perfect is not the past of the present perfect.
Is there a formal model here somewhere, Bruce? We could outlaw back-shifting, I suppose. Then back-shifting would be an "error" by fiat, wouldn't it?
.myoneclubopener.brad.30nov10.
From: Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sun, November 28, 2010
Subject: Re: had-for-did
Our discussion lately has maintained that grammar is a model of the structure of the language. This model may be formal or informal. If it is informal, then it tends to be subjective and may change from time to time and place to place. When it is formal such changes through time and place are seen as objective and rigid differences in particular models of Grammar. The study of structural models is a branch of mathematics. One desideratum of mathematics is that as a tool of science it be formal and subject to the construction of a proof. Proofs may contain errors but it is frustrating for a scientist to speak of an "error" without a formal model to relate it to. I have seen the "had-for-did" error described as an optional "back-shifting." This is related to the fact that sometimes quoted material may be direct and sometimes indirect. An "error" may come in maintaining the tense of the material quoted: "You did not clean your room!" Since the mother is being quoted indirectly, in some models the tense may be back-shifted to agree with the past tense of "complained." This, then, is taken as the origin of the "past perfect." Other models may make it correspond to any past-in-the-past tense, and some might allow only the present perfect to have a past perfect. Some models might allow any of these descriptions. However, it seems that only when it is to be made relative to a formal model can there be an error one way or the other.
--- [log in to unmask] wrote:
From: Brad Johnston <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: had-for-did
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2010
The items I quoted deal with (1) the most common 'had' error, 'had' in front of a past tense verb, e.g, Pinker, (2) 'had been' where 'was' or 'were' belong, e.g, Huddleston, and (3) forcing the irregular past participle, e.g, Osgood.
There is another, lesser error I call, 'had-for-did', for lack of a better term.
Barron's E-Z Grammar by Dan Mulvey, c.2009, gives as an illustration of the past perfect, "My mother complained that I had not cleaned my room''.
It should read, "My mother complained that I did not clean my room'.
.brr.had.27nov10.
Susan,
As long as Charles Osgood writes, in the Afterword to the 2000 Edition of Strunk & White, "Nor could they have imagined that thirty-eight years after they met, White would take this little gem of a textbook that Strunk had written for his students, polish it, expand it, and transform it into a classic".
As long as Otto Jesperson writes, "When they had been little they had watched each other's plates with hostile eyes".
As long as Steven Pinker writes, "Once they had left, many men went to take a look."
As long as Purdue's Online Writing Lab website illustrates the past perfect with, "John had hoped to have won the trophy".
As long as Ed Vavra illustrates the past perfect with, "They had given us visas for three months".
As long as The Little Gold Grammar Book illustrates the past perfect with, "Larry had studied Russian before he went to Moscow".
As long as Rodney Huddleston writes, "When Arthur had been a boy he had used to play football".
As long as the McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar writes that, "The past perfect deals with an action that began at a more distant point in the past and ended at a more recent point in the past".
As long as these anomalies, and hundreds more like them, persist, what I am still doing, lo these many months later, is called "perseverance", not "perseveration", the former being admirable dedication, the latter being a mild form of crazy.
I elect to assume you were drinking, or had been drinking, when you hurled your insult.
.thatcrazyhadguy.brad.23nov10.
Sidebar: Pinker also writes in The Language Instinct, "The highest percentage of ungrammatical sentences was found in the proceedings of learned academic conferences" :)