The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of
verb form, generally treated as a
grammatical tense
In grammar, tense is a grammatical category, category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their grammatical conjugation, conjugation patterns.
The main tenses foun ...
in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time in the past. Examples in English are: "we ''had'' arrived"; "they ''had'' written".
The word derives from the
Latin ''plus quam perfectum'', "more than perfect". The word "perfect" in this sense means "completed"; it contrasts with the "imperfect", which denotes uncompleted actions or states.
In
English grammar, the pluperfect (e.g. "had written") is now usually called the past perfect, since it combines
past tense with
perfect aspect. (The same term is sometimes used in relation to the grammar of other languages.) English also has a ''
past perfect progressive
This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes:
* Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went''
* Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone''
* Combinations o ...
'' (or ''past perfect continuous'') form: "had been writing".
Meaning of the pluperfect
The pluperfect is traditionally described as a
tense; in modern linguistic terminology it may be said to combine tense with
grammatical aspect
In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to ...
; namely
past tense (reference to past time) and
perfect aspect. It is used to refer to an occurrence that at a past time had already been started (but not necessarily completed), (e.g. "It had already been raining for a week when the big storm started.").
Bernard Comrie classifies the pluperfect as an ''absolute-relative tense'', because it absolutely (not by context) establishes a
deixis
In linguistics, deixis (, ) is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person in context, e.g., the words ''tomorrow'', ''there'', and ''they''. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their de ...
(the past event) and places the action relative to the deixis (before it).
[Comrie, Bernard, ''Tense'', Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, p. 64.]
Examples of the English pluperfect (past perfect) are found in the following sentence (from
Viktor Frankl's ''
Man's Search for Meaning''):
*A man who for years had thought he had reached the absolute limit of all possible suffering now found that suffering had no limits, and that he could suffer still more, and more intensely.
Here, "had thought" and "had reached" are examples of the pluperfect. They refer to an event (a man thinking he has reached the limit of his capacity to suffer), which takes place before another event (the man finding that his capacity to suffer has no limit), that is itself a past event, referred to using the
past tense (''found''). The pluperfect is needed to make it clear that the first event (the thinking and the supposed reaching) is placed even earlier in the past.
Examples from various languages
Some languages, like
Latin, make pluperfects purely by
inflecting the verb, whereas most modern European languages do so using appropriate
auxiliary verbs in combination with
past participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
s. The ways in which some languages form the pluperfect are described below.
Greek and Latin
Ancient Greek verbs had a pluperfect form (called ὑπερσυντέλικος, "more than completed"). An example is ἐτεθύκει, "had sacrificed" – compare the perfect τέθυκε, "has sacrificed". See
Ancient Greek verbs. Modern Greek uses auxiliaries to form the pluperfect; examples are given in the table at the end of this article.
In
Latin, the pluperfect (''plus quam perfectum'') is formed without an auxiliary verb in the
active voice, and with an auxiliary verb plus the perfect passive participle in the
passive voice. For example, in the
indicative mood:
* ''Pecuniam mercatori dederat.'' ("He had given money to the merchant"; active)
* ''Pecunia mercatori data erat.'' ("Money had been given to the merchant"; passive)
The subjunctive mood is formed similarly (in this case ''dedisset'' and ''data esset'' respectively). In many cases an
ablative absolute phrase, consisting of a noun and perfect participle in the ablative case, may be used in place of a pluperfect; for example: ''Pecuniis mercatori datis, cessit emptor'', "When money had been given (more literally: Money having been given) to the merchant, the buyer left."
For detailed information see
Latin grammar and
Latin conjugation.
Romance languages
French
In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, the indicative pluperfect (''Plus-que-parfait'', "more than perfect") is formed by taking the appropriate form of the imperfect indicative of the auxiliaries ''avoir'' or ''être'' and adding the past participle, ''j'avais mangé''. Another type of pluperfect (''passé antérieur'', "past anterior") can be formed with the appropriate simple past form of the auxiliary: ''j'eus mangé'', though it is rarely used now.
Italian
In
Italian, there are two pluperfects in the indicative mood: the recent pluperfect (''trapassato prossimo'') and the remote pluperfect (''trapassato remoto''). The recent pluperfect is formed correspondingly to French by using the
imperfect of the appropriate auxiliary verb (''essere'' or ''avere'') plus the past participle. For example, ''Ero affamato perché non avevo mangiato'' ''I was hungry because I had not eaten.'' The remote pluperfect is formed by using the
preterite
The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple pas ...
of the appropriate auxiliary verb plus the past participle. In the Italian consecutio temporum, the ''trapassato remoto'' should be used for completed actions in a clause subjugated to a clause whose verb is in the preterite.
*Example (remote pluperfect): "Dopo che lo ebbi trovato, lo vendetti". (After I had found it, I sold it)
*Example (recent pluperfect): "Dopo che lo avevo trovato, lo vendevo". (After I had found it, I would sell it)
The second example may refer to an event that happened continuously or habitually in the past. (I.e. "After I used to find it, I would sell it" OR "After I would find it, I would sell it"). The first example, being the preterite, refers only to actions completed once in the remote past, or distant past.
Judeo-Spanish
In
Judeo-Spanish
Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew script: , Cyrillic: ), also known as Ladino, is a Romance language derived from Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain, and then after the Edict of Expulsion spreading through the Ottoman Empir ...
, the Latin pluperfect forms with little alteration have been preserved (e.g. final /m/ and /t/ are dropped) to express this tense (''pluskuamperfekto''), which is identical in form to the imperfect subjunctive. It has a similar form to the Portuguese, thus the Portuguese example above in Judeo-Spanish is, ''Kuando yegí suve ke mi haver morera'' 'When I came I knew that my friend had died'. It remains the main spoken form, though in some varieties, similarly to Spanish or Portuguese, the pluperfect is formed using the auxiliary verbs ''tener'' or ''aver'' plus the past participle. For example, ''Kuando yegí suve ke mi haver tuve morido'' or ''Kuando yegí suve ke mi haver avía morido''.
Portuguese and Galician
In
Portuguese and
Galician, a synthetic pluperfect (''mais-que-perfeito'' or ''antepretérito'') has been conserved from Latin. For example, ''Quando cheguei, soube que o meu amigo morrera'', 'When I came, I found out that my friend had died'. In Portuguese, however, its use has become mostly literary, and particularly in spoken communication, the pluperfect is usually formed using the auxiliary verb ''ter'', in the imperfect form (tinha tinhas tinha tínhamos tínheis tinham) plus the past participle. For example, ''Quando cheguei, soube que o meu amigo tinha morrido''. A more formal way of expressing the pluperfect uses the verb "haver". For example: ''Quando cheguei, soube que o meu amigo havia morrido''. This periphrastic construction is not permitted in Galician, so Galician uses the synthetic pluperfect exclusively.
Romanian
In
Romanian, the pluperfect (''mai mult ca perfect'') is expressed without any auxiliary words, using a particular form of the verb, originated in the Latin
pluperfect subjunctive
The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...
. (compare Italian imperfect subjunctive ''Sembrava che Elsa non venisse'' with Romanian pluperfect ''Părea că Elsa nu venise''). For example, in ''Când l-am întrebat, el văzuse deja filmul'' 'When I asked him, he had already seen the movie'. The verb ''văzuse'' is in the pluperfect form of ''a vedea'' 'to see'. Technically, this form is obtained from the singular third person form of the simple perfect tense by adding specific terminations for each person and number.
However, in northern Transylvania there is a regional way to state the pluperfect (that may reflect the German influence). The pluperfect is expressed by combining the auxiliary verb ''fost'' or the short version ''fo'' (= "was" in English or "war" in German) with the participle, which (quite difficult to explain) is stated in its feminine form. Examples:
''o fost foastă'' (or ''o fo' foastă'') = he had been; ''am fost văzută'' = I had seen; ''or fost venită'' = they had come.
Spanish
In
Spanish, there are also two pluperfects, being the pluperfect proper (''pluscuamperfecto'', or ''antecopretérito'') and the so called ''pretérito anterior'' (or ''antepretérito''). While the former uses the
imperfect of the auxiliary verb ''haber'' plus the past participle, the latter is formed with the
simple past of ''haber'' plus the past participle. For example, in pluperfect ''Había comido cuando mi madre vino'' 'I had eaten when my mother came', but in ''pretérito anterior'' ''Hube comido cuando mi madre vino'' 'I had eaten when my mother would come'. This last form however is rarely used.
Germanic languages
Dutch
In
Dutch, the pluperfect (''Voltooid verleden tijd'') is formed similarly as in German: the past participle (''voltooid deelwoord'') is combined with the past-tense form of the auxiliary verb ''hebben'' or ''zijn'', depending on the full lexical verb: ''Voordat ik er erg in had, was het al twaalf uur geworden. '' - ''Before I noticed, it had become noon already''. In addition, pluperfect is sometimes used instead of present perfect: ''Dat had ik al gezien (voordat jij het zag)'' - lit.: ''I had seen that (before you did)''. The parenthesized part is implied and, therefore, can be omitted.
English
In
English grammar, the pluperfect is formed by combining the
auxiliary verb ''had'' with the
past participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
of the main verb, as in ''had jumped'' or ''had written'' , often used in its contracted form ''’d'', as in ''I’d jumped''. It is commonly called the past perfect, being a combination of
perfect aspect (marked by the use of the ''have'' auxiliary with the past participle) and
past tense (marked by the use of the past tense of that auxiliary, ''had''). It is one of a number of analogously formed perfect constructions, such as the
present perfect ("have/has jumped"),
future perfect ("will have jumped") and
conditional perfect ("would have jumped").
Unlike the present perfect, the past perfect can readily be used with an adverb specifying a past time frame for the occurrence. For example, it is incorrect to say *''I have done it last Friday'' (the use of ''last Friday'', specifying the past time, would entail the use of the
simple past, ''I did it'', rather than the present perfect). However, there is no such objection to a sentence like ''I had done it last Friday'', where the past perfect is accompanied by a specification of the time of occurrence, especially in a context that clearly provides for a connection with another past event, either specified (as in ''I hadn’t met him then.'') or implied (as in ''I hadn’t expected that.'').
English also has a ''
past perfect progressive
This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes:
* Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went''
* Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone''
* Combinations o ...
'' (or ''past perfect continuous'') construction, such as ''had been working''. This is the past equivalent of the
present perfect progressive, and is used to refer to an ongoing action that continued up to the past time of reference. For example: "It had been raining all night when he awoke." It is also commonly used to refer to actions that had led to consequences in the past (as in ''I was sleepy because I’d been working all night.'').
The past perfect form also has some uses in which it does not directly refer to an actual past event. These are generally in condition clauses and some other
dependent clauses referring to hypothetical circumstances (as in "If I’d known about that, I wouldn’t have asked."), as well as certain expressions of wish (as in "I wish I hadn’t been so stupid back then.").
German
In
German, the pluperfect (''Plusquamperfekt'', ''Präteritumperfekt'', or ''Vorvergangenheit'', lit. ''pre-past'') is used in much the same manner, normally in a ''nachdem'' sentence. The ''Plusquamperfekt'' is formed with the ''Partizip Perfekt'' (''Partizip'' II) of the full lexical verb, plus the auxiliary verb ''haben'' or ''sein'' in its
preterite
The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple pas ...
form, depending on the full lexical verb in question.
:''Nachdem ich ''aufgestanden war'', ging ich ins Badezimmer.''
: "After I had got up, I went into the bathroom."
When using modal verbs, one can use either the modal verb in the preterite or the auxiliary (''haben'' for all modals):
:''Es hätte regnen müssen.''
:"It had to have rained."
:''Es musste geregnet haben.''
:"It ''must have rained''."
There is a drastic shift of meaning between these variants: the first sentences denote that it "had been necessary" to rain in the past. The second sentence denotes that the speaker assumed that it had rained.
Swedish
In
standard Swedish, the pluperfect (''pluskvamperfekt'') is similar to pluperfect in a number of other Germanic languages, but with a slightly different word order, and is formed with the
preterite
The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple pas ...
form of ''ha'' (''have'' in English), i.e. ''hade'' (''had'' in English), plus the
supine form of the main verb: ''När jag kom dit hade han gått hem'' - ''When I arrived there he had gone home''.
Korean
In Korean the pluperfect is formed by adding an additional "었". "었" is a
morpheme that is analogous to the suffix "ed" in English, in that it is also used to form the simple past tense.
Thus
* 먹 = eat (variously conjugated 먹다, 먹어, 먹어요, 먹습니다, ''etc.'')
* 먹었 = ate (variously conjugated 먹었다, 먹었어, 먹었어요, 먹었습니다, ''etc.'')
* 먹었었 = had eaten (variously conjugated 먹었었다, 먹었었어, 먹었었어요, 먹었었습니다, ''etc.'')
Slavic languages
In some of the Slavic languages the pluperfect has fallen out of use or is rarely used; pluperfect meaning is often expressed using the ordinary past tense, with some
adverb (such as "earlier") or other
periphrastic
In linguistics, periphrasis () is the use of one or more function words to express meaning that otherwise may be expressed by attaching an affix or clitic to a word. The resulting phrase includes two or more collocated words instead of one infl ...
construction to indicate prior occurrence.
Ukrainian and
Belarusian
Belarusian may refer to:
* Something of, or related to Belarus
* Belarusians, people from Belarus, or of Belarusian descent
* A citizen of Belarus, see Demographics of Belarus
* Belarusian language
* Belarusian culture
* Belarusian cuisine
* Byelor ...
preserve a distinct pluperfect (''давньоминулий час'' or ''запрошлы час'' – ''davńomynulyj čas'' or ''zaprošły čas'') that is formed by preceding the verb with ''buv'' / ''bula'' in Ukrainian and ''byŭ'' / ''była'' in Belarusian (literally, 'was'). It was and still is used in daily speech, especially in rural areas. Being mostly unused in literature during
Soviet times, it is now regaining popularity. Here is an example of usage: ''Ja vže buv pіšov, až raptom zhadav...'' (Ukrainian) and ''Ja ŭžo byŭ pajšoŭ, kali raptam zhadaŭ'' (Belarusian) ''I almost had gone already when I recalled...''
In
Slovenian, the pluperfect (predpreteklik, 'before the past') is formed with the verb 'to be' (biti) in past tense and the participle of the main verb. It is used to denote a completed action in the past before another action (''Pred nekaj leti so bile vode poplavile vsa nabrežja Savinje'', 'A few years ago, all the banks of Savinja River had been flooded) or, with a
modal verb, a past event that should have happened (''Moral bi ti bil povedati'', 'I should have told you'). Its use is considered archaic and is rarely used even in literary language.
In
Polish pluperfect is only found in texts written in or imitating Old Polish, when it was formed with past (perfect) tense of ''być'' "to be" and past participle of the main verb. The person marking is movable, e.g. ''zrobił byłem ~ zrobiłem był'' "I had done". Past tense of the adjectival verbs (''powinienem był zrobić'' "I should have done") and conditional mood (''zrobiłbym był'' "I would have done") are often wrongly considered pluperfect forms – morphologically, the latter is actually past conditional, rarely used in modern Polish.
In
Serbo-Croatian, the pluperfect ("pluskvamperfekt") is constructed with the past tense ("perfekt") of the verb to be ("biti") plus the adjective form of the main verb.
For example: "Ja sam bio učio", which means, "I had been studying".
In
Bulgarian, the pluperfect (''минало предварително време'') is formed with the imperfect tense of the auxiliary verb ''съм'' (to be) and the perfect active participle of the main verb.
Other languages
In
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
, the pluperfect is formed without an auxiliary verb, usually by interpolating ''-as-'' before the simple past ending: ''parhasem'', "we had remained".
In
Irish, perfect forms are constructed using the idea of being (or having been) ''after'' doing something. In the pluperfect, ''bhíomar tar éis imeacht'', "we had gone", literally, "we were after going".
In
Finnish, the pluperfect (''pluskvamperfekti'') is constructed with an auxiliary verb ''olla'' 'to be', which is in the past tense. The primary verbs get the past participle endings ''-nyt/-nut'' in singular, ''-neet'' in plural forms (the 'n' assimilates with certain consonants) and ''-ttu/-tty/-tu/-ty'' in passive forms.
Table of forms
Different perfect construction
In German and French there is an additional way to construct a pluperfect by doubling the perfect tense particles. This is called doubled perfect (''doppeltes Perfekt'') or super perfect (''Superperfekt'') in German and plus past perfect (''temps surcomposé'') in French.
[ :fr:Temps surcomposé] These forms are not commonly used in written language and they are not taught in school.
Both languages allow to construct a past tense with a modal verb (like English "to have", in German "haben", in French "avoir"), for example "I have heard it". This is largely equivalent to the usage in English. The additional perfect tense is constructed by putting the modal verb ("to have") in the past tense as if being the full verb ("I have had") followed by the actual verb in the past particle mode ("I have had heard it"). The same applies to those verbs which require "to be" (German "sein", French "être") as the modal verb for the construction of the past tense (which would not work in English).
In spoken language in Southern Germany the doubled perfect construction sometimes replaces the Standard German pluperfect construction.
In France it is uncommon in the Northern regions (with Parisian influence) but it can be found widely in Provençal dialects as well as in other regions around the world. In all regions the doubled pluperfect ("I had had heard it") is uncommon although it is possible - all of these forms emphasize the perfect aspect by extending the modal verb so that a doubled pluperfect would add upon the pluperfect in another part of the speech.
: German: ''Ich habe ihm geschrieben gehabt'' (instead of ''Ich hatte ihm geschrieben'')
: German: ''Ich hatte ihm geschrieben gehabt'' (the doubled pluperfect emphasis)
: French: ''Il a eu déjeuné'' (instead of ''Il avait déjeuné'')
: French: ''Il a eu fini de déjeuner'' (additional emphasis on the perfect aspect)
See also
*
Pluperfect progressive
This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes:
* Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went''
* Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone''
* Combinations of s ...
References
External links
The past tense description on Learniv
{{Authority control
Grammatical tenses