Raymott
VIP Member
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2008
- Member Type
- Academic
- Native Language
- English
- Home Country
- Australia
- Current Location
- Australia
The use of the first past perfect is not warranted. It's grammatical, but there's no reason for it. You need something happening after the past perfect to make it even worth considering.
"I hit him with the baseball bat because he had broken into our house after we had all gone to bed." You could use it there. I wouldn't, but at least you'd have some justification. Very often one sentence is not enough to warrant the use of the past perfect tense. The context is also important. For example:
A: "Why did you hit him with the baseball bat?"
B: "Because he had broken into our house." This is defensible, but simply supplying a sentence, "He had broken into our house" is useless in respect of deciding whether it should be in the past perfect. Your example is like this.
"I hit him with the baseball bat because he had broken into our house after we had all gone to bed." You could use it there. I wouldn't, but at least you'd have some justification. Very often one sentence is not enough to warrant the use of the past perfect tense. The context is also important. For example:
A: "Why did you hit him with the baseball bat?"
B: "Because he had broken into our house." This is defensible, but simply supplying a sentence, "He had broken into our house" is useless in respect of deciding whether it should be in the past perfect. Your example is like this.
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