On 12/01, Karl wrote to me: I've got a better challenge for you: find one grammar text book--just one--that defines the perfect in such a way that everything you hold is an error counts as one.
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On 12/01, Brad wrote: I record the incorrect ones, not the correct ones, so I'll have to find a good one for you. Here are two that are not good, while I'm in the file.
Teach Yourself French Grammar, Sidwell & Haviland: The pluperfect is a compound tense conjugated with avoir and etre and is used to say what had happened.
The Free Dictionary: The Past perfect is a perfective tense used to express action completed in the past.
I have an idea. How do you define it? I'll bet I'd accept your definition. Let's go there, ya wanna? We'll hold the rest of your message. Tell me what the past perfect is, and/or the present perfect, since you specified "the perfect".
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On 12/02, Karl wrote: My definition: The past perfect in English is a compound tense that combines the primary past tense with the perfect, which is a secondary tense system. The past perfect prototypically functions to locate an event prior to a second past event.
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(We know where that thread went, to the store (first) to buy potatoes (second) and downhill from there.)
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On 12/03, Karl wrote: It's not worth my time to repeat definitions that you can find in any decent grammar book.
So, here's where we are, relative to his challenge. I can't (haven't yet been able to) find a correct definition in "any decent grammar book" and he won't look, so WE NEED HELP. Is there anyone out there who can direct me/us to a "decent" grammar book that has a definition that somehow conveys that we use the past perfect to show that by the time something happened, something else had already happened. It relates to a very specific timing sequence, not merely to show that one thing happened before another.
Observe. "By the time Sally started high school, her mother had died and her father was in prison." He's IN.
vs. "By the time Sally started high school, her mother had died and her father had been in prison." He's OUT.
It does make a difference. That's why we have it. One way he's in the slammer, the other way he's out.
"When I awoke, the sun had hit the snooze button and it was raining cats and dogs." The sun had already hit the snooze button when I awoke. It was already raining when I awoke.
Is there someone out there who has access to a decent grammar text who can find a decent definition?
We need help. Many hands make light work and many eyes find elusive definitions.
.brad.07dec10. Pearl Harbor Day.