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Perfect and pluperfect: what is the relationship?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Raphael Salkie
Raphael Salkie
Affiliation:
Brighton Polytechnic and University of Poitiers
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Extract

The English (present) perfect (e.g. I have gone) has been extensively studied in the theoretical literature on tense and aspect. The pluperfect (I had gone) has by contrast received relatively little attention, and the relationship between the present perfect and the pluperfect has been virtually ignored. Descriptive grammars of English also tend to say little about the latter two issues, beyond distinguishing cases such as (1)–(6), where the pluperfect seems to be the ‘past of the perfect’, from instances like (7)–(11), where the pluperfect is the ‘past of the past’ (cf. Thomson & Martinet, 1969: 112–13; Berland-Delépine, 1971: 95–6; Guitard, 1966: 206–7; Palmer, 1974: 54):

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 1989 , pp. 1 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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