Not until he told me had I known her.

[Son Ho]

Could you please tell me which one is correct, sentence 2 or 3? In my opinion, sentence 3 is correct because "did I know her" happened after "he told me". We can't use "had I known her" - the past perfect.

1. I hadn't known her until he told me.
2. Not until he told me had I known her.
3. Not until he told me did I know her.

 

[Tarheel]

In my opinion, they are all grammatical sentences_ but none of them make sense.

 

[emsr2d2]

As Tarheel said, none of them make any sense. Can you describe the situation? What do you mean by "know her"?

 

[Son Ho]

I think this means "know about". Sentence 2 is the answer to sentence 1 in a workbook. And I wonder if we can use the simple past instead of the past perfect in sentence 3. Sentence 2 is wrong to me.

 

[emsr2d2]

And what do you think "know about her" means?

 

[teechar]

Sentence 2 is the answer to sentence 1 in a workbook.

What does that mean? Please cite the source. Also if you can, take a photo of the page on which you saw that question and post it below.

 

[Son Ho]

Sentence 2 is on this page. We use inversion.

 

[5jj]

Sentence #2 has no real meaning. There are several other sentences there that are not very natural.

 

[jutfrank]

And sentence #15 is badly wrong.

Get a better book, Son Ho.

 

[tedmc]

I think it means to say:

Not until he told me that I knew I had known her.

 

[teechar]

That's also no good, tedmc.

 

[tedmc]

That's also no good, tedmc.

Why not?

 

[5jj]

Not until he told me that I knew I had known her.

It is not a complete sentence as it stands.

 

[tedmc]

It is not a complete sentence as it stands.

How about this:
It wasn't until he told me about it that I realised I had known her before that.

 

[emsr2d2]

How about this:
It wasn't until he told me about it that I realised I had known her before that.

What does "it" refer to? What period of time does "before that" refer to?

 

[tedmc]

What does "it" refer to? What period of time does "before that" refer to?

It is a dummy subject.
"before that" refers to the period before "he" told the writer about "her" identity
The idea is to make sense of OP's original sentence.

 

[emsr2d2]

No one has mentioned her identity. The original sentence makes no sense at all. Trying to come up with a version of it that makes sense doesn't seem to be working either!

 

[Tarheel]

I think it means to say:

Not until he told me that I knew I had known her.

It's true that there is no main verb, but also I can't make sense out of that. (No offense intended.)