past simple vs past perfect
My question might seem to be stupid enough, it's basic grammar, I believe; however, I'm at my wits' end. Should we use Past perfect or Past Simple in the following sentence:
He promised/ had promised to turn up at 4, but appeared at 9?
Solution 1:
Chris Sunami's answer is correct but I think I can provide a picture to visualise the difference:
He promised to turn up at 4, but appeared at 9
He had promised to turn up at 4, but appeared at 9
In the first version, that uses simple past, both the promise and the failure to appear happen at an undetermined time in the past.
However, in the second version, using the past perfect, the promise and the failure to appear happen at two distinct times in the past. By using the past perfect we are spelling out that the promise takes place before the failure to attend.
One can use the second version if it is important to draw this distinction.
Solution 2:
Neither is wrong. The only difference between simple past and past perfect is to describe the definite completion of an action. This is not such a distinction with event verbs.
With event verbs (i.e., verbs that implicitly have a definite completion to them, like "to promise" or "to start" or "to finish"), the difference is only one of additional emphasis.
In the given example, since "to promise" is an event verb - it has an implicit ending to the action - there isn't much of a technical distinction between the simple past (which is here describing an event that is already passed) and the past perfect (which is here describing the ending of an event in the past). The only difference is one of tone, with the past perfect serving to underline the completion of the event.
If we look at a non-event verb, we will see a difference. Let's rewrite the example sentence, using "to talk" instead of "to promise":
We talked/had talked about him turning up at 4, but he appeared at 9.
In this modification, the verb "to talk" is not an event verb; there is no implicit end with "to talk" like there is with "to promise". Here, the distinction between the simple perfect and the past perfect is greater. In the simple past case, the activity "to talk" is not demarcated as strongly as in the past perfect case. While both are in the past, since "to talk" is not implicitly an event, the simple past implies that this was a general activity of talking in the past; talking about the topic may have happened multiple times in the past, or may even resume in the future. In other words, the meaning of, "We talked about him turning up at 4," could hold the implied meaning that there were subsequent discussions with him after the one you describe (e.g., "... but later he wanted to change the time.")
In comparison, the past perfect describes a definite ending to that past activity, and no subsequent relevant discussion about the topic occurred since that time.