past perfect for past

Tom Givon tgivon at uoregon.edu
Tue Aug 10 21:29:49 UTC 2010


Maybe it's good to remember that the shift from "perfect" to "past" is 
one of the most natural, wide-spread ways of getting past-tense marking.  TG
=======



john at research.haifa.ac.il wrote:
> About 25 years ago I noticed this sort of this in the usage of speakers of Black
> English. On closer analysis, I found that it was used particularly for completed
> actions at the beginning of narrative sequences, e.g. starting a personal
> story with 'I'd gone to New York last weekend and I saw my cousin and he told
> me...'. It wasn't used for past tenses in general, just in that context.
> John
>
>
>
>
>
> Quoting "Moore, John" <moorej at ucsd.edu>:
>
>   
>> I heard someone claim that younger speakers of American English will use the
>> past perfect ('I'd gone') instead of the simple past ('I went') in colloquial
>> speech.  Has anyone heard of this, and if so, does anyone know of any
>> literature n it?
>>
>> thanks, John
>>     
>
>
>
>
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