simple past or past perfect?

kasia   Monday, May 23, 2005, 10:15 GMT
Eng,
I'm afraid I don't understand.
Let's look at it again

"I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one"


In my opinion Past Perfect here denotes the sequence of events:

The had been an opportunity

The opportunity had ceased to be

I was able to see the opportunity
kasia   Monday, May 23, 2005, 10:22 GMT
>I am afraid you have mistaken "was seldom able" as 'could see', <


what is the significance of whether he 'was able' or 'could' see an opportunity for the usage of past perfect here?
Enlighten me, Eng.
kasia   Monday, May 23, 2005, 10:52 GMT
Ive only now read what you wrote , Eng:

>The past perfect denotes a 'past-in-the-past' action:
Ex: The waiters cleaned up the tables after the guests had gone.

However, in until-clause, the action is not 'past-in-the-past', so it should be not in the past perfect, as is agreed by many readers here.<



It is perfectly possible to use Past Perfect in the UNTIL clause, though perhaps superfluous:

It wasn't until he had died that I realised how much he meant to me.




>But the fact is, the tense is frequent in this structure. Here are two examples from Charles Dickens:
http://www.online-literature.com/dickens/olivertwist/22/

Ex: They held their course at this rate, until they had passed Hyde Park corner, and were on their way to Kensington

Ex: Sikes waited until he had fairly gone; and then, telling Oliver he might look about him if he wanted, once again led him onward on his journey.

So I cannot explain the past perfect here.<



Re Dickens:
I think you are confusing two things ( unless you gave 2 different examples of 2 diff usages of Past Perf)


Sikes waited [with the continuation of his journey & speaking to Oliver] until the man had gone

is a regular Past before Past example
and had gone is needed to stress that the man was indeed gone
this is an A) old and B) literary example, obviously not used in speech and definitely not in teh 21st c
though it would be intersting to see if writers today, who employ similar style (Sarah Waters??) use this construction


Now the 2nd exapmle is somewhat different
<until they had passed Hyde Park <

to me he is ONLY stressing "completion", how else would you do it in the past?? excluding any lexical means of course.
Travis   Monday, May 23, 2005, 12:28 GMT
Speaking of tenses, I'm going to be using a different tense system in IG, even though one superficially similar to the one in English besides its lack of progressive aspect, partly because tense/aspect-wise IG is based off German and not English. Hence,

IG tense/aspect : German tense/aspect : English tense/aspect

present : present : present, present progressive
present perfect : present perfect ("conversational past") : past, past progressive, present perfect
past : past ("narrative past") : past, past progressive
past perfect : past perfect : past perfect

There is a slight difference between simple past and present perfect in IG, which is that present perfect (and past perfect) is truly perfect (it's not just an "extra past tense"), whereas the simple past can be used in an imperfect fashion, due to expressing past-ness but not perfect-ness. And while the past in IG is preferred to referring to arbitrary events in the past, and the present perfect is for referring to things which have completed recently, since it is technically a present tense, like in German, there is no obligatory restriction on the usage of the simple past versus present perfect. If anything, the simple past in IG is preferred in writing, and the present perfect is preferred in speech.

As for progressiveness, while the present is generally used in IG where one'd use the present progressive in English, if one wants to emphasize progressive-ness in IG, one generally uses the adverb <graad> with the verb in question, like the use of German <gerade> (which tends to be <grad> in spoken German).
Eng   Monday, May 23, 2005, 13:07 GMT
>> Re Dickens:
I think you are confusing two things ( unless you gave 2 different examples of 2 diff usages of Past Perf)

Sikes waited [with the continuation of his journey & speaking to Oliver] until the man had gone

is a regular Past before Past example and had gone is needed to stress that the man was indeed gone <<

People here seem to have ignored the simple fact that a stoppage is implied in the main action. For example, "He waited for her until 7 o'clock" means a stoppage of the waiting. He didn't wait anymore when it was 7 o'clock. But we have all focused on the waiting, rather than the stoppage that makes the Until-clause difficult.
kasia   Monday, May 23, 2005, 15:24 GMT
>>>People here seem to have ignored the simple fact that a stoppage is implied in the main action. For example, "He waited for her until 7 o'clock" means a stoppage of the waiting. He didn't wait anymore when it was 7 o'clock. But we have all focused on the waiting, rather than the stoppage that makes the Until-clause difficult.<<<

But of course we concentrate on the waiting, simply because the verb is WAIT, not STOP (waiting).

I see no relevance to the matter at all.

Especially as in your example :

>>Ex: Sikes waited until he had fairly gone; and then, telling Oliver he might look about him if he wanted, once again led him onward on his journey. <<<

teh events are :

Sikes and the guy are together, Sikes waiting for the guy to leave
The guy leaves
The guy has left
Sikes finishes waiting and speaks to Oliver

No stoppage, 2 parallel actions for some time, then waiting stops

something ingeniously has also occured to me just now:
the past perfect is a result natural and correct sequence of tenses

"he has gone" suggests completion of the action of leaving
but if it is preceded by a verb in the past tense, the present perfect has to be changed into past perfect.


Eng, please can you tell me where you are from. Are you an advanced learner or a native speaker of Eng?
kasia   Monday, May 23, 2005, 15:25 GMT
something ingeniously has also occured to me just now

was supposed to be sth ingeniously simple
Eng   Monday, May 23, 2005, 17:06 GMT
>> But of course we concentrate on the waiting, simply because the verb is WAIT, not STOP (waiting).
I see no relevance to the matter at all.<<

There is of course the difference. In our leading question, one stops working when it rains, rather than one works until the rain stops.

In this example:
Ex: Sikes waited until he had fairly gone; and then, telling Oliver he might look about him if he wanted, once again led him onward on his journey.
Sikes stopped waiting when he had fairly gone. What then did Sikes do? Once again, Sikes led Oliver onward on his journey.
D   Monday, May 23, 2005, 17:40 GMT
>> There is of course the difference. In our leading question, one stops working when it rains, rather than one works until the rain stops. <<

The fact that people usually don't work in the rain is irrelevant. The sentence 'he worked until it had rained' means 'the worked until the rain was over.' This is just the way that the tense works in English. It's exactly the same as the difference between the following two sentences.

He fell asleep when I had given my speech.
He fell asleep when I gave my speech.
Eng   Monday, May 23, 2005, 19:08 GMT
>> The fact that people usually don't work in the rain is irrelevant. The sentence 'he worked until it had rained' means 'the worked until the rain was over.' <<

Didn't you say the tense is not possible at all:
>> Ex: He worked in the field until it had rained.
I doubt that a native speaker would use this sentence at all. <<

Now if you insist the stoppage is in the raining, rather than in the working, I will respect your choice. To me, however, the logic does matter. I can't figure why the work stops when the rain stops.

I still want to repeat that, in "we will wait for you until 7 o'clock", the stoppage is implied in the main action. If follows that "He waited until she had finally appeared" is saying that he stopped waiting when she had appeared, rather than when her appearing was over.

========
>> It's exactly the same as the difference between the following two sentences.

He fell asleep when I had given my speech.
He fell asleep when I gave my speech. <<

I am afraid most English native speakers don't think so. If they do, I will also respect that. It follows that there is no difference between the two tenses. This is not my recognition, though.
Eng   Monday, May 23, 2005, 19:19 GMT
I apologize I have misunderstood the following part. If you may, please skip it:

>> It's exactly the same as the difference between the following two sentences.

He fell asleep when I had given my speech.
He fell asleep when I gave my speech. <<

I am afraid most English native speakers don't think so. If they do, I will also respect that. It follows that there is no difference between the two tenses. This is not my recognition, though.
Eng   Monday, May 23, 2005, 19:19 GMT
I apologize I have misunderstood the following part. If you may, please skip it:

>> It's exactly the same as the difference between the following two sentences.

He fell asleep when I had given my speech.
He fell asleep when I gave my speech. <<

I am afraid most English native speakers don't think so. If they do, I will also respect that. It follows that there is no difference between the two tenses. This is not my recognition, though.
Eng   Monday, May 23, 2005, 19:25 GMT
Here is the correction:

>> It's exactly the same as the difference between the following two sentences.

He fell asleep when I had given my speech.
He fell asleep when I gave my speech. <<

As far as I know, Till/Until is different to When. In Till/Until, the stoppage happens when the subordinate action is finished, and therefore Past Perfect is more reasonable:
Ex: He fell asleep until I had given my speech.
kasia   Monday, May 23, 2005, 20:23 GMT
Ex: He fell asleep until I had given my speech.

i dont know. Does the above sentence really make sense? Does that sound natural to the rest of you? I feel it's just complicating matters, using examples like the 2nd one with rain, or the one above, that don't make sense, so nobody would say them, unless tehy were a learner in which case they should be corrected.
Eng   Monday, May 23, 2005, 21:22 GMT
I have a second thought: D is correct in saying this:
>> It is possible to read the first one as saying 'he worked until the rain started' and the second as 'he worked until the rain stopped.' <<

I was wrong. Please accept my apology. Opinions from all of you are highly appreciated by me. Thank you all.