ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: backshift of zero or first conditional?

CalifJim — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:42:22 GMT

Anonymous
He discovered that the promise was broken, schools were d[ e ]stroyed, people had gone to other lands, and the leaders had become corrupt. How about here??? Why use a past perfect in one and not in the other??

Excellent question.

This has to be read as an enumeration of four states that were discovered.

1. The promise was (in the state of being) broken. (Not the event: Someone broke the promise.)

2. Schools were (in the state of being) destroyed. ( Schools appeared to be in ruins. -- Not the event: Someone destroyed schools.)

3. [ People were not there anymore (state, the result of an event, not an event) because ] they had (previously) gone to other lands. (event)

4. [ Leaders were corrupt (state, the result of an event, not an event) because ] they had (previously) become corrupt. (event)

It was simply the choice of the author to present the facts in this way. We may disagree about whether this was the clearest, most effective way to present the facts, but that is the way he chose.

Re: backshift of zero or first conditional?

Marius Hancu — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:19:15 GMT

You can't go back too many times. Choose a critical moment/event in the past: everything earlier than that should be past perfect.

When he arrived, it had developed into ***, and they became his worst enemies.

This is correct. Only what ("it") developed before his arrival is past perfect. Those events before his arrival constituted the basis of their conflict, after that everything goes simple perfect.

Re: backshift of zero or first conditional?

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:34:10 GMT

Thank you. I may be naive to ask you this: What is the reason to shift-back further only the following two events and leave the other two events just once back (as it seems -- I don't how many times back since the past can go back far in the past with the ability to accommadate how many ever times back intact)?? He discovered that the promise was broken, schools were d[ e ]stroyed, people had gone to other lands, and the leaders had become corrupt. How about here??? Why use a past perfect in one and not in the other?? (I didn't see any context for further mentioning of development in the text) When he arrived, it had developed into ***, and they became his worst enemies.

Re: backshift of zero or first conditional?

CalifJim — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:48:57 GMT

Anonymous
If he did write the book, it was after the last remaining people fled to *** and after a long journey to the land of ...

It's a "backshift of a zero conditional". That is, it's a conditional with a simple past in both clauses. (By the way, I like to give this conditional the name "the detective conditional" because it sounds like a detective is deducing facts from some evidence he has discovered. This is not a standard grammatical term, however!!!)

Anonymous
Is this kind of mixing of past perfect and past allowed??? He discovered that the promise was broken, schools were d[ e ]stroyed, people had gone to other lands, and the leaders had become corrupt.

Yes. It's quite natural and common to mix these two tenses.

backshift of zero or first conditional?

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:07:43 GMT

1) Hi, Please tell me if this is a backshift of a zero or first conditional. Is backshifting of zero or first conditional OK??? If he did write the book, it was after the last remaining people fled to *** and after a long journey to the land of ... 2) Is this kind of mixing of past perfect and past allowed??? He discovered that the promise was broken, schools were distroyed, people had gone to other lands, and the leaders had become corrupt.