[Not a Simple Past Perfect Question]

[Salinas17 at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/13/03 3:37:15 PM, jrubba at calpoly.edu writes:
<<I'm interested in the significance of a speaker (or a writer) choosing to
use the past perfect or in the alternative, the simple past, in a situation
where the order of events is clear.  Here's an example:

1)Before Jimmy left, he ate five eggs.

2)Before Jimmy left, he had eaten five eggs.
Is there any difference in meaning in these two sentences?>>

Conventionally, the difference is eaplained as a matter of emphasis or
precision.
See, e.g.,
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar/archive/pastperfect01.html

<<Now, what about this pair:
3)Before the search party reached the scene, the rain began to fall.
4)Before the search party reached the scene, the rain had begun to fall.

Is #3 grammatically correct? In other words, is the past perfect obligatory
here?... why would you opt to use the past perfect in such a situation?>>

Temporal conjunctions serve something like the same function as the past
perfect, but not exactly.  Consider:

- Before there was earth, there was sky.
- Before there was earth, there had been sky.

(The first places emphasis on sky.  The second emphasizes the differences in
verb tense - it matters that sky preceded earth.)

Compare:
- There was earth.  There had been sky.
(Jimmy left.  He had eaten three eggs.)
- There was earth.  There was sky.
(Jimmy left.  He ate three eggs.)

(Without the conjunction, the first seems to strongly imply cause or
replacement, doesn't it?  The second -- without conjunction -- conveys possibly an
altogether different temporal order.)

Finally:
- Before there had been earth, there had been sky.

What's wrong with this sentence?  Is there no longer sky or earth?  I don't
think that bothers us.  We automatically presume that additional context will
clarify the tenses.  (e.g., "...and then people were created.")  And perhaps
that is what is essential to all of these examples.  They don't only imply
rules.  They also imply an explanatory context -- which we often supply ourselves,
and which are crucial to making sense out of out-of-context phrases like
these.

SLong