III. The Past Continuous vs. The Past Indefinite

The Past Continuous cannot denote a succession of past actions and thus is unable to develop a narrative. The sphere of the Past Continuous is description while the sphere of the Past Indefinite is narration.

The Past Perfect Tense

I. The Formation

The past Perfect Tense is formed by means of the Past Indefinite of the auxiliary verb ''to have'' and Participle II of the notional verb.

In interrogative sentences the auxiliary verb is placed before the subject.

In negative sentences the negative particle ''not'' is placed after the auxiliary verb.

• He had worked.

• Had he worked?

• He had not worked.

II. The Use

1) The Past Perfect is used to denote an action completed before a certain moment in the past, i.e. the beginning and the end of this action precede that moment (Past Perfect Exclusive). The past moment from which the completed action is viewed may be indicated:

1. by means of an adverbial expression by 4 o'clock, by that time, by the end of the week;

• By that time the sun had set.

2. By another action in the past tense;

• When she awoke the rain had stopped.

3. By the situation.

• I opened the window. The rain had stopped.

Note 1: Sometimes the Past Perfect does not denote priority but only the completion of the action.

• He knew the poem by heart when he had heard it several times.

2) The Past Perfect is used to denote an action which began before a given past moment and continued into it (Past Perfect Inclusive). The starting point of the action is indicated by since and the whole period of duration is usually indicated by the preposition for.

• She told me that she had been ill since she came back from the seaside.

• She told me she had been ill for three weeks.

3) The Past Perfect is used after the conjunctions hardly... when, scarcely ... when, no sooner... than...

• They had no sooner arrived than a heavy rain started.

• No sooner had they arrived than a heavy rain started.

• He had scarcely gone to bed when he fell asleep.

4) The Past Perfect denotes a succession of past actions belonging to the time preceding the narrative as a whole, thus describing a succession of events in the pre-past, though in this case the Past Perfect may be used for the first action alone.

• Alice was selecting a book from the shelves. When she had first come to the place there had been few books there. To these she had added (added) many volumes of poetry, novels and a couple of encyclopaedias.

5) We use the Past Perfect with the verbs such as hope, expect, want, plan, think about, wish to describe past intentions which were unfulfilled. Had is usually stressed in this case:

• They had hoped to get to the summit but Travers fell ill at the base camp.

• I had hoped we would leave tomorrow, but is won’t be possible.

• He had intended to make a cake, but he ran out of time.

6) The Past Perfect is used in adverbial clauses of time to express a future action viewed from the past. It shows that the action of the subordinate clause will be completed before the action of the principal clause which is usually expressed by the Future-in-the-Past.

• He promised to ring me up when he had got a definite answer.