English Subjects

THE PAST PERFECT TENSE

A. Use:

The Past Perfect tense is used to refer to a non-continuous action in the past, which was already completed by the time another action in the past took place. Notice that Simple past and Past perfect are generally used together with conjuctions like when, after, before and until. The Past perfect refers to the first action and Simple past to the second action.

--> She had heard the news before I saw her.
--> I had finished my work by the time the clock struck twelve.

In the preceding examples, the verbs had heard and had finished are in the Past Perfect tense, and the verbs saw and struck are in the Simple Past. The use of the Past Perfect tense indicates that the actions of hearing the news and finishing the work were already completed by the time the actions expressed by the verbs in the Simple Past took place.

b. Formation:

The Past Perfect tense is formed from the Simple Past of the auxiliary to have, followed by the past participle of the verb.

The Simple Past of to have is had. In spoken English, the auxiliary had is often contracted to 'd. For example, the Past Perfect of the verb to work is conjugated as follows:

Without Contractions	With Contractions

I had worked	I'd worked
you had worked	you'd worked
he had worked	he'd worked
she had worked	she'd worked
it had worked	it'd worked
we had worked	we'd worked
they had worked	they'd worked

The contraction it'd is less frequently used than the other contractions, since it is more difficult to pronounce.

c. Questions and negative statements:

As is the case with other English tenses, questions and negative statements in the Past Perfect tense are formed using the auxiliary.

Questions are formed by placing the auxiliary before the subject. For example:

Affirmative Statement	Question
I had worked.	Had I worked?
They had worked.	Had they worked?

Negative statements are formed by placing the word not after the auxiliary. For example:

Affirmative Statement	Negative Statement
I had worked.	I had not worked.
They had worked.	They had not worked.

In spoken English, the following contraction is often used:

Without Contraction	With Contraction
had not	hadn't

Negative questions are formed by placing the auxiliary before the subject, and the word not after the subject. However, when contractions are used, the contracted form of not follows immediately after the auxiliary. For example:

Without Contraction	With Contraction
Had I not worked?	Hadn't I worked?
Had they not worked?	Hadn't they worked?