Talk:Pluperfect

"In British English, the past perfect tense is normally used, however."

We'd really need a proper corpus to tell, but as a lifelong speaker of British English, I don't think this is right; I would always say, "After I got up I went to the bathroom" unless there was something very particular about the sequence. What do others think? seglea 05:43, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

pluperfect tense

I merged stuff into pluperfect tense, cos thats a good idea--Thewayforward 23:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pluperfect is a very ueful verb tense to drive home a statement without ambiguity. look at the following statement which shows clarity when using the pluperfect together with correct punctuation.

Peter, whilst David had had "had", had had "had had" "Had had" had had a better score in the exam results.

types of pluperfect - bad use of English

"the door was open since yesterday" is certainly not British English; I don't know if it's American, but it reads as if it's been translated into English by a speaker of another language. Is it supposed to imply that the door is still open, or that it has been shut again? If it means that the door has been continually open since (including parts of) yesterday a Brit would say "The door has been open since yesterday" (or more likely "The door's been open since yesterday") If the door is currently shut, but was opened sometime yesterday a Brit would probably say "The door was opened yesterday." If it has recently been shut again after having been opened yesterday: "The door had been open since yesterday." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.24.53.20 (talk) 00:41, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

clean up

This article, particularly the intro, needs to be cleaned up so that it's easier to follow Quark1005 (talk) 02:14, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike Russian, which today has only remnants of pluperfect

Well, the Russian pluperfect is pretty much the same as Ukrainian, except the auxiliary verb, "bylo", isn't conjugated.

Say, in Ukrainian it is:

Ja vže buv pіšov, až raptom zhadav

In Russin, it is:

Ja uže bylo pošol, kak vdrug vspomnil.

What's the difference, huh? I guess the only difference here is that in traditional grammars, Russian "bylo" is regarded as a particle, while Ukrainian "buv" is regarded as a separate complex tense, but I don't think they're really different in practice.

Mentioning the use of a doubled perfect in German dialects?

I think a good idea would be to mention that many German dialects which have lost the preterite (and have replaced it with the perfect) have created constructions consisting of a "double perfect". For example: Standard NHG: Ich war gefahren. Some dialects on the other hand have lost the preterite completely even for haben and sein and so have constructions like: Ich bin gefahren gewessen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.111.95.55 (talk) 01:07, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Italian

The speech "Dopo che lo avevo trovato, lo vendevo" in Italian is absolutely wrong, though it is largely used in (very) informal language. The correct form is "Dopo averlo trovato, lo avrei venduto" (literally, "After founding it.."). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.231.211.242 (talk) 14:14, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Non Indo-european languages?

I would appreciate seeing examples from other languages that don't originate in Europe. How about Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Guarani, Quechua, Sinhalese, Swahili, etc?

50.7.33.170 (talk) 21:48, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bad example

I think the English example: "A man who for years had thought he had reached the absolute limit of all possible suffering" is not a very good example because the act being described is not a single act but a state that persisted, as the quote tells us, "for years". It seems like a continuous thing rather than an occurrence. I realize that if it were being described in a continuous way it could be stated as "A man... had been thinking" but what is being described is the same in both cases, I feel.

A better example for me would be something like "I walked into the middle of the room. I had closed the door on my arrival so there was no draft". Obviously an actual quote from some well-known work would have to be found. 90.206.28.180 (talk) 23:51, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]