Verb Tenses: The Past Perfect Created by Kathryn Reilly

Verb Tense Background Verbs change their form to allow writers to accurately describe events. Verbs alert the reader if the action is in the past, present or future. Within these three main time frames, actions can be further broken down.

The Past Perfect The past perfect describes an event in the past. The past perfect describes an event that occurred before another event in the past. – I cheered after she had won the competition. She had won the competition before I cheered. The past perfect often relays a sequence of events, especially in narrative texts.

Creating the Past Perfect To create the past perfect tense: Subject + auxiliary verb had + verb in past tense + remaining sentence The boy wondered if dinosaurs+ had + eaten + trees. She asked if we + had + heard + the commotion. Note: Typically, the event occurring second appears first in the sentence.

Past Perfect Examples The past perfect tense describes an event that occurred before another event. – Savannah asked if Ben had completed his homework. Ben had completed his homework before Savannah asked. – He replied that he had finished it two hours ago. He had finished the homework before he replied.

Be Aware… …when phrasing a question in the past perfect tense, the auxiliary verb had should begin the question followed by the subject. – Had you heard that he lost the race? – Had David arrived after the movie started?