Pluperfect

The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, characterizes certain verb forms and grammatical tenses involving an action from an antecedent point in time. Examples in English are: "we had arrived" before the game began; "they had been writing" when the bell rang.

The word is derived from the Latin , "more than perfect". The word "perfect" in this sense means "completed"; it contrasts with the "imperfect", which denotes uncompleted actions or states.

In English grammar, the pluperfect (e.g. "had written") is now usually called the past perfect, since it combines past tense with perfect aspect. (The same term is sometimes used in relation to the grammar of other languages.) English also has a past perfect progressive (or past perfect continuous) form: "had been writing".

Meaning of the pluperfect The pluperfect is traditionally described as a tense; in modern linguistic terminology it may be said to combine tense with grammatical aspect; namely past tense (reference to past time) and perfect aspect. It is used to refer to an occurrence that at a past time had already been started (but not necessarily completed), (e.g. "It had already been raining for a week when the big storm started.").

Bernard Comrie classifies the pluperfect as an absolute-relative tense, because it absolutely (not by context) establishes a deixis (the past event) and places the action relative to the deixis (before it).Comrie, Bernard, Tense, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, p. 64. Examples of the English pluperfect (past perfect) are found in the following sentence (from Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning): Here, "had thought" and "had reached" are examples of the pluperfect. They refer to an event (a man thinking he has reached the limit of his capacity to suffer), which takes place before another event (the man finding that his capacity to suffer has no limit), that is itself a past event, referred to using the past tense (found). The pluperfect is needed to make it clear that the first event (the thinking and the supposed reaching) is placed even earlier in the past.

Examples from various languages Some languages, like Latin, make pluperfects purely by inflecting the verb, whereas most modern European languages do so using appropriate auxiliary verbs in combination with past participles.

Greek

Ancient Greek verbs had a pluperfect form (called , "more than completed"). An example is , "had sacrificed" – compare the perfect , "has sacrificed". Modern Greek uses auxiliaries to form the pluperfect; examples are given in the table at the end of this article.

Latin and Romance languages

In Latin, the pluperfect () is formed without an auxiliary verb in the active voice, and with an auxiliary verb plus the perfect passive participle in the passive voice. For example, in the indicative mood: ("He had given money to the merchant"; active) ("Money had been given to the merchant"; passive) The subjunctive mood is formed similarly (in this case and respectively). In many cases an ablative absolute phrase, consisting of a noun and perfect participle in the ablative case, may be used in place of a pluperfect; for example: , "When money had been given (more literally: Money having been given) to the merchant, the buyer left."

French

In French, the indicative pluperfect (Plus-que-parfait, "more than perfect") is formed by taking the appropriate form of the imperfect indicative of the auxiliaries avoir or être and adding the past participle, j'avais mangé. Another type of pluperfect (passé antérieur, "past anterior") can be formed with the appropriate simple past form of the auxiliary: j'eus mangé, though it is rarely used now. +EnglishFrenchTenseNotesI went to the libraryJe suis allé(e) à la bibliothèquePassé composé"suis" is the present conjugation of "être"I had already gone to the library when you arrived at my placeJ'étais déjà allé(e) à la bibliothèque quand tu es arrivé chez moiPlus-que-parfaitIn the first clause, "étais" is the imperfect conjugation of "être"

Italian

In Italian, there are two pluperfects in the indicative mood: the recent pluperfect (trapassato prossimo) and the remote pluperfect (trapassato remoto). The recent pluperfect is formed analogously to French by using the imperfect of the appropriate auxiliary verb (essere or avere) plus the past participle. For example: Ero affamato perché non avevo mangiato, "I was hungry because I had not eaten". The remote pluperfect is formed by using the preterite of the appropriate auxiliary verb plus the past participle. In the Italian consecutio temporum, the trapassato remoto should be used for completed actions in a clause subjugated to a clause whose verb is in the preterite. Example (remote pluperfect): "Dopo che lo ebbi trovato, lo vendetti". (After I had found it, I sold it) Example (recent pluperfect): "Dopo che lo avevo trovato, lo vendevo". (After I had found it, I would sell it)

The second example may refer to an event that happened continuously or habitually in the past. (I.e. "After I used to find it, I would sell it" OR "After I would find it, I would sell it"). The first example, being the preterite, refers only to actions completed once in the remote past, or distant past.

Judeo-Spanish

In Judeo-Spanish, the Latin pluperfect forms with little alteration have been preserved (e.g. final /m/ and /t/ are dropped) to express this tense (pluskuamperfekto), which is identical in form to the imperfect subjunctive. It has a similar form to the Portuguese, thus, the Portuguese example below, in Judeo-Spanish, is: Kuando yegí suve ke mi haver morera, 'When I came I knew that my friend had died'. It remains the main spoken form, though in some varieties, similarly to Spanish or Portuguese, the pluperfect is formed using the auxiliary verbs tener or aver plus the past participle. For example, Kuando yegí suve ke mi haver tuve morido or Kuando yegí suve ke mi haver avía morido.

Galician-Portuguese

In Portuguese and Galician, a synthetic pluperfect (mais-que-perfeito or antepretérito) has been conserved from Latin. For example, Quando cheguei, soube que o meu amigo morrera, 'When I came, I found out that my friend had died'. In Portuguese, however, its use has become mostly literary, and particularly in spoken communication, the pluperfect is usually formed using the auxiliary verb ter, in the imperfect form (tinha tinhas tinha tínhamos tínheis tinham) plus the past participle. For example, Quando cheguei, soube que o meu amigo tinha morrido. A more formal way of expressing the pluperfect uses the verb "haver". For example: Quando cheguei, soube que o meu amigo havia morrido. This periphrastic construction is not permitted in Galician, so Galician uses the synthetic pluperfect exclusively.

Romanian

In Romanian, the pluperfect (mai mult ca perfect) is expressed without any auxiliary words, using a particular form of the verb, originated in the Latin pluperfect subjunctive (compare Italian imperfect subjunctive Sembrava che Elsa non venisse with Romanian pluperfect Părea că Elsa nu venise). For example, in Când l-am întrebat, el văzuse deja filmul 'When I asked him, he had already seen the movie'. The verb văzuse is in the pluperfect form of a vedea 'to see'. Technically, this form is obtained from the singular third person form of the simple perfect tense by adding specific terminations for each person and number. However, in northern Transylvania there is a regional way to state the pluperfect (that may reflect the German influence). The pluperfect is expressed by combining the auxiliary verb fost or the short version fo (= "was" in English or "war" in German) with the participle, which (quite difficult to explain) is stated in its feminine form. Examples: o fost foastă (or o fo' foastă) = he had been; am fost văzută = I had seen; or fost venită = they had come.

Sicilian and Pantesco

In Sicilian, the pluperfect is formed in the standard manner for modern Romance languages, using the verb "to have" inflected into the imperfect tense and a past participle which is invariable according to person and number. However, in the Pantesco dialect of the language, an alternative structure using the verb "to be" is found. In this structure, the 3rd person singular imperfect of the verb to be (era, "he/she/it was") is used to indicate the pluperferct, which is followed the preterite, conjugated for number and person. This structure has similarities to the pluperfect in Maltese, and therefore it appears likely that the Pantesco form was influenced by the Arabic dialect formerly spoken on Pantelleria.

{| class="wikitable" |+ The singular of the pluperfect in Sicilian, Pantesco and Maltese |- ! colspan="2" | Sicilian !! colspan="2" | Pantesco !! colspan="2" | Maltese |- ! Auxiliary Verb || Main Verb||Auxiliary Verb || Main Verb|| Auxiliary Verb || Main Verb |-style="font-weight:normal; background-color:#dae8fc;" | àva have.IMPF.1SG || scrivutu write.PTP.M.SG || era be.IMPF.3SG ||scrissi write.PRF.1SG || kont be.PFV.1SG || ktibt write.PFV.1SG |- | àutu have.IMPF.2SG|| scrivutu write.PTP.M.SG|| era be.IMPF.3SG || scrivìsti write.PRF.2SG || kont be.PFV.2SG ||ktibt write.PFV.2SG |-style="font-weight:normal; background-color:#dae8fc;" | àva have.IMPF.3SG || scrivutu write.PTP.M.SG|| era be.IMPF.3SG || scrissi write.PRF.3SG || kien be.PFV.3SG.M || kíteb write.PFV.3SG.M |- | àva have.IMPF.3SG || scrivutu write.PTP.M.SG || era be.IMPF.3SG || scrissi write.PRF.3SG || kienet be.PFV.3SG.F ||kítbetwrite.PFV.3SG.F |-style="font-weight:normal; background-color:#dae8fc;"

Spanish

In Spanish, there are also two pluperfects, being the pluperfect proper (pluscuamperfecto, or antecopretérito) and the so called pretérito anterior (or antepretérito). While the former uses the imperfect of the auxiliary verb haber plus the past participle, the latter is formed with the simple past of haber plus the past participle. For example, in pluperfect Había comido cuando mi madre vino 'I had eaten when my mother came', but in pretérito anterior Hube comido cuando mi madre vino 'I had eaten when my mother would come'. This last form however is rarely used. Sometimes (specially in journalism) the imperfect subjunctive with '-ar' termination can be used with a pluperfect sense in subordinated phrases, but it is neither normative nor recommended.Imperfect of subjunctive with indicative value

Germanic languages

Dutch In Dutch, the pluperfect (voltooid verleden tijd) is formed similarly as in German: the past participle (voltooid deelwoord) is combined with the past-tense form of the auxiliary verb hebben or zijn, depending on the full lexical verb: Voordat ik er erg in had, was het al twaalf uur geworden. – Before I noticed, it had become noon already. In addition, pluperfect is sometimes used instead of present perfect: Dat had ik al gezien (voordat jij het zag) – lit.: I had seen that (before you did). The parenthesized part is implied and, therefore, can be omitted.

English

In English grammar, the pluperfect is formed by combining the auxiliary verb had with the past participle of the main verb, as in had jumped or had written, often used in its contracted form 'd, as in I'd jumped. It is commonly called the past perfect, being a combination of perfect aspect (marked by the use of the have auxiliary with the past participle) and past tense (marked by the use of the past tense of that auxiliary, had). It is one of a number of analogously formed perfect constructions, such as the present perfect ("have/has jumped"), future perfect ("will have jumped") and conditional perfect ("would have jumped").