auxilliary verbs with began

[Jacara]

Is 'was began' grammatically correct in the following sentence and if not what should it be? '....and the relationship will have been built up before the book was began.'

[Gёггч]

Originally Posted by Jacara

Is 'was began' grammatically correct in the following sentence and if not what should it be? '....and the relationship will have been built up before the book was began.'

i think it should be ............was begun

[Carmen123]

Hi, everybody...I am new here and I really don't know how to use this forum, but I want to learn more about this forum and about english too. My english is not very good, I have really problems with grammar. But I hope here I will fined the help what I need for my study.

[Anglika]

Originally Posted by Jacara

Is 'was began' grammatically correct in the following sentence and if not what should it be? '....and the relationship will have been built up before the book was began.'

"was begun" is the correct tense. If your original sentence is in a printed text, there may have been a typo.

[2006]

Originally Posted by Jacara

Is 'was began' grammatically correct in the following sentence and if not what should it be? '....and the relationship will have been built up before the book was began.'

"was began" is not correct. Simple past tense verbs cannot take auxillary verbs, but past participles can. However, your sentence talks about the future.

"...and the relationship will have been built up before (the work on) the book begins.' is correct. (the sentence talks about the future)

The following past tense sentence are correct:
'...and the relationship had been built up before the work on the book had begun.' (past perfect tense)
'...and the relationship was built up before the work on the book began. (simple past tense)