two English grammatical questions! Thanks!

[aaleks]

"...When they were kids, his [older] brother had been a bully he avoided as much as he could, ..."

So, why did the author use 'had been'? Why not 'was'?

If I'm reading the sentence without thinking of the rule it sounds okay to me, and it sounds better like this than with 'was'. But I am not a native speaker -- how would/could I know?

I keep saying this sentence in my head both ways - with had been and with was and to be honest, I don't think there is much difference in meaning. "Had been a bully" implies that he was a bully but stopped being a bully at some point. "Was a bully" implies that he was a bully and may or may not still be a bully. (For example: "He was a bully then, and he's a bully now.") I think the author used "had been" to highlight the fact that the brother changed at some point and was no longer a bully.

Not the brother but the circumstances did change -- the brothers got separated. The youngest one went to live with his grandparents.

[romeo.alpha]

You're making the same mistake that is very common among native Dutch-speakers who think they have a good grasp of English. While they are fluent for the most part, they still mistake how grammar works in Dutch for how it also works in English. It doesn't. Your 57 years don't amount to much in this case when you've been perceiving it wrong for 57 years. In [Removed text redacted by admin from quoted post]

You might want to wind your neck in a bit, because every grammar source I've seen describes the past perfect as past-before-past or similar. Like the British Council, for instance.

"Had" indicates completion here, yes. But it indicates it was complete before another action in the past. So what Iversen said was in no way wrong.

Nope. It indicates only completion. You can have a sentence like "John had written a book." That's grammatically correct, all you know is that it happened in the past and that it is complete. Any other information in terms of orienting it with other events that occurred in the past, and putting them on a timeline comes from context. It isn't indicated by the grammar.

Similarly, "John had written several books, but he no longer writes." There's no event that follows, in fact you don't know when specifically he wrote the books in relation to other events in the past, and you don't need to.

Also, "As of five years ago, John had written several books" isn't orienting "had written several books" before an event, just a point in time.

[Lianne]

You're making the same mistake that is very common among native Dutch-speakers who think they have a good grasp of English. While they are fluent for the most part, they still mistake how grammar works in Dutch for how it also works in English. It doesn't. Your 57 years don't amount to much in this case when you've been perceiving it wrong for 57 years. In [Removed text redacted by admin from quoted post]

You might want to wind your neck in a bit, because every grammar source I've seen describes the past perfect as past-before-past or similar. Like the British Council, for instance.

"Had" indicates completion here, yes. But it indicates it was complete before another action in the past. So what Iversen said was in no way wrong.

Nope. It indicates only completion. You can have a sentence like "John had written a book." That's grammatically correct, all you know is that it happened in the past and that it is complete. Any other information in terms of orienting it with other events that occurred in the past, and putting them on a timeline comes from context. It isn't indicated by the grammar.

Similarly, "John had written several books, but he no longer writes." There's no event that follows, in fact you don't know when specifically he wrote the books in relation to other events in the past, and you don't need to.

Also, "As of five years ago, John had written several books" isn't orienting "had written several books" before an event, just a point in time.

Actually, those examples seem off to me. "John had written several books, but he no longer writes." seems wrong (at least lacking other context). It should be "John has written several books, but he no longer writes."

As for "As of five years ago, John had written several books.", one could certainly argue that the "event" before which he wrote the books is simply the point in time "five years ago".

[languist]

Actually, those examples seem off to me. "John had written several books, but he no longer writes." seems wrong (at least lacking other context). It should be "John has written several books, but he no longer writes."

As for "As of five years ago, John had written several books.", one could certainly argue that the "event" before which he wrote the books is simply the point in time "five years ago".

I agree. "John had written several books before he stopped writing" would likewise be fine, but not the example as it was written. Even "John had written several books in his lifetime" seems wrong without more context placing this event before another past event (it could be as vague as discussing John's life from the perspective of his death, but it's necessary). "John has written several books in his lifetime" is the correct tense for this statement without such context.

[Cainntear]

every grammar source I've seen describes the past perfect as past-before-past or similar. Like the British Council, for instance.

"Had" indicates completion here, yes. But it indicates it was complete before another action in the past. So what Iversen said was in no way wrong.

Nope. It indicates only completion.

{citation needed}
If you can find any reliable source that backs up your claim, I would be very interested, because every single source I've seen describes it in similar terms to the British Council link above, and as an English teacher, I need to know if my sources are wrong.

(Except I know they aren't, because they match the patterns I observe pretty much every day of my life.)

You can have a sentence like "John had written a book." That's grammatically correct, all you know is that it happened in the past and that it is complete. Any other information in terms of orienting it with other events that occurred in the past, and putting them on a timeline comes from context. It isn't indicated by the grammar.

The sentence is not, in and of itself, complete. When I read this, my brain is automatically anticipating the context which is needed to make it make grammatical sense.

If "John had written a book" was the opening sentence of a story, I'd expect it to be the backdrop for a narrative in the past simple. For example: "John had written a book. He wasn't happy with the ending, and a few of the events in the middle didn't really work as well as he had hoped, but his bank account was getting low and his rent was due, so he knew he had to sell the manuscript to a publisher as soon as possible."

Similarly, "John had written several books, but he no longer writes." There's no event that follows, in fact you don't know when specifically he wrote the books in relation to other events in the past, and you don't need to.

As others have already said, that doesn't feel natural in English.

Also, "As of five years ago, John had written several books" isn't orienting "had written several books" before an event, just a point in time.

That still makes it past-before-past.

[romeo.alpha]

Actually, those examples seem off to me. "John had written several books, but he no longer writes." seems wrong (at least lacking other context). It should be "John has written several books, but he no longer writes."

"John has written several books" doesn't by itself indicate he no longer does it. With "has", the additional context is required. "John had written several books" tells you all you need to know that he no longer writes. If you say "John had written several books, but he no longer writes", the "but he no longer writes" part is redundant.

As for "As of five years ago, John had written several books.", one could certainly argue that the "event" before which he wrote the books is simply the point in time "five years ago".

If you're trying to reframe a point in time as an event, maybe it's time to admit that it's not relation to an event that is key with the English past perfect, but rather time.

[romeo.alpha]

{citation needed}
If you can find any reliable source that backs up your claim, I would be very interested, because every single source I've seen describes it in similar terms to the British Council link above, and as an English teacher, I need to know if my sources are wrong.

I already provided an example sentence that shows at its simplest you can have a sentence with "had" that doesn't refer to a subsequent event. I'll give another one. "John had had sex." That's clearly saying "John isn't getting any anymore." It conveys a complete thought and is completely independent of being related to another past event. It may be that some event caused his celibacy, or maybe after some time it just became evident he wasn't having sex anymore.

(Except I know they aren't, because they match the patterns I observe pretty much every day of my life.)

Now you know they are. Because before you make a proclamation about what a particular construction does or requires, you need to look for all the exceptions you can find. Whoever wrote the page on the British Council obviously failed to do that. And it didn't even take me that much effort to find the exceptions.

When you consider the base claim that it is somehow dependent on a subsequent past event, and then find the exceptions to it, it's clear that the only thing it does is indicate completion. And that's what the perfect aspect does. The mistake here is treating it as if it is only a tense.

Some linguists make a distinction between perfect and perfective, with perfect being tense, and perfective being aspect but then the mistake is in misidentifying "past perfective" as "past perfect", or further, thinking you can use international terms and talking about "pluperfect" without knowing if you're talking about tense or aspect.

[Lianne]

Actually, those examples seem off to me. "John had written several books, but he no longer writes." seems wrong (at least lacking other context). It should be "John has written several books, but he no longer writes."

"John has written several books" doesn't by itself indicate he no longer does it. With "has", the additional context is required. "John had written several books" tells you all you need to know that he no longer writes. If you say "John had written several books, but he no longer writes", the "but he no longer writes" part is redundant.

As for "As of five years ago, John had written several books.", one could certainly argue that the "event" before which he wrote the books is simply the point in time "five years ago".

If you're trying to reframe a point in time as an event, maybe it's time to admit that it's not relation to an event that is key with the English past perfect, but rather time.

I'm sorry, but this is just plain old wrong.

"By the time John started writing poetry, he had written several novels." What do you think of that example? "He had written" absolutely does not imply that he no longer does. I don't know where you're getting that idea, as a native English speaker. The distinction you're making between your two example sentences simply doesn't exist.

[romeo.alpha]

"By the time John started writing poetry, he had written several novels." What do you think of that example? "He had written" absolutely does not imply that he no longer does. I don't know where you're getting that idea, as a native English speaker. The distinction you're making between your two example sentences simply doesn't exist.

It indicates that the novels are finished. He's definitely no longer writing those novels. He might have started another one, or be writing something else. But if you use "John had written several novels" to mean that he had several incomplete manuscripts, you'd be using English wrong.

[Lianne]

"By the time John started writing poetry, he had written several novels." What do you think of that example? "He had written" absolutely does not imply that he no longer does. I don't know where you're getting that idea, as a native English speaker. The distinction you're making between your two example sentences simply doesn't exist.

It indicates that the novels are finished. He's definitely no longer writing those novels. He might have started another one, or be writing something else. But if you use "John had written several novels" to mean that he had several incomplete manuscripts, you'd be using English wrong.

OK, I thought you were saying that he no longer writes, but you meant that he no longer writes those specific books. Right?

I still don't agree that the has/had distinction relates in any way to whether or not he's done writing. "John has/had written several novels." implies he's finished them.