Talk:Pluperfect

Untitled
"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)


 * We would also need to distinguish spoken and written English, and different interlocutors/audiences. —DIV (1.129.110.105 (talk) 11:14, 16 February 2021 (UTC))

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


 * 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.


 * Not sure what that really proves, but I reckon it's missing a full stop.
 * " Peter, whilst David had had "had", had had "had had". "Had had" had had a better score in the exam results. "
 * —DIV (1.129.110.105 (talk) 11:13, 16 February 2021 (UTC))

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)

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)

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)


 * Ich bin gefahren gewe s en. ?
 * —DIV (120.17.82.115 (talk) 07:00, 12 July 2017 (UTC))


 * Beggin your pardon, but the examples are rather nonsense. Ye it is true, taht occasionally (!) one hera a "double pluperferkt" (Ich hatte sie gesehen gehabt), but this is very rare and considered as wrong German, and in my whole life (I am German, living in Germany) I never ever saw it in a written form. And the example Ich hatte sie gesehen, nachdem sie mir gewunken hatte. is anyway wrong, because this is just ordinary (=correct standard German) Pluferfect, nothing else. -- Wassermaus (talk) 16:59, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

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)

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)


 * Me too. No action on this for over seven years now.  —DIV (1.129.110.105 (talk) 06:20, 16 February 2021 (UTC))

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)

wrong
"In Polish pluperfect[citation needed] is only found in texts written in or imitating Old Polish"

Huh? Pluperfect was still commonly used in 19th century non-historical novels, so how can you claim it imitates Old Polish? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.147.40.37 (talk) 02:06, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Death of pluperfect in American English
It's happening to a lesser degree in other English-speaking countries, but America seems to be leading the way. Is this worth mentioning in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.102.34.77 (talk) 13:14, 27 November 2018 (UTC)


 * It's unlikely to be "lost" as a grammatical class (IMHO), but the construction might become indistinguishable from some other tense. For instance, "were" can be past tense or conditional:  using the same form for two grammatical classes doesn't mean that the grammatical class itself has disappeared.   —DIV (1.129.110.105 (talk))  — Preceding undated comment added 06:23, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Judeo-Spanish
I believe the examples in the Judeo-Spanish section are missing the word for 'friend' ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.112.56.244 (talk) 03:48, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah it seems to be missing, I'll investigate with wikiblame. Erinius (talk) 05:51, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Nope, checked wiktionary, haver means friend. Erinius (talk) 06:05, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Rfc on redirect for "Past Perfect"
The term "Past perfect" redirects here. Should the redirect go to Past perfect disambiguation page instead of this page?


 * Yes it should. As nominator I will explain my rationale. First, it seems more likely someone would plug in "past perfect" as a Wikipedia search term to look for a book title, a film title, an album title or some other kind of media. Check out the linked disambiguation page above for more clarity on that. It is true that the OED, says "past perfect" is a synonym for "pluperfect."


 * However, this does not mean that it as widely used as the term "past perfect." For instance, in school I learned about "past perfect" but "pluperfect" was never brought to my attention. I have to say "pluperfect" must be close to being archaic, even though the OED does say this word is in current use. Also, I just noticed even this article says, "'pluperfect' [is] usually called 'past perfect' in English" - first line of the intro. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 03:59, 8 July 2022 (UTC)


 * You want Redirects for discussion. This is not a question for RFC. Good luck though. — HTGS (talk) 04:47, 8 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Accordingly, I've removed the RFC template. Feel free to nominate the redirect at WP:RfD. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 10:28, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

"Usually called past perfect in English"
I think this is a limited view, probably from the USA. As an Australian educated in the UK, I had never heard the term "past perfect" until recently. I suspect that it also relates to "present perfect", another term I never learnt. I propose to change the text to "usually called past perfect in US English". Groogle (talk) 07:16, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Imperfect subjunctive as pluperfect (indicative)
Sometimes journalists use the past subjunctive with pluperfect sense, alike if it were derived from latin. Spanish has two past subjunctive equivalent forms: those terminated in '-se' and those terminated in '-ra', the first derived originally from latin synthetic pluperfect, the last from latin pluperfect subjunctive. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pluperfect&diff=1213067900&oldid=1203578824 00:22, 11 March 2024 (UTC) Rikivillalba (talk) 00:22, 11 March 2024 (UTC)