Explaining narrative tenses (3) for proficiency: E6-05G

 

 

 

Narrative tenses for proficiency-level students part 3: past simple & past perfect  in depth

Introduction

In order to handle English narrative writing successfully in terms of the verb tenses, the fundamental fact which must be grasped is that we can use language to differentiate only three time periods. Here they are:

Time 3	Time 2	Time 1
Past perfect	Past simple	Present
u	u	I’m writing about my day. (1) q
	It began at 4.30 a.m. (2) q	t
Before going to bed, by mistake I had set my alarm for the wrong time. (3)	t

 

Notes on the time periods

The present continuous is the tense which describes actions in present time.

‘Where are you?’ ‘We’re sunbathing on the beach at Margate.’ (Right now, as I speak to you on my mobile phone.) The so-called ‘present simple’ is not typically used for this. This is time period (time zone) 1.

The past simple is used to talk about a time period before zone 1. We can identify this period in one of three ways:

1) By characterising the period: ‘When we lived in Manchester.’

2) By using a time name tag: ‘In the second millennium BC’, ‘In October ‘94’ etc

3) By relating this past time to the present, using adverbs like last: ‘last week’ or ago: ‘six months ago’, ‘two hours ago’ etc. Ago means – ‘before now’.

The past perfect can only be used in conjunction with the past simple.

‘I had never worn a shirt and tie’ is not a possible way to begin a narrative in English, because it forces us to ask the question: before what? It is incomplete.

‘Before I got the job as a travelling salesman, I had never worn a shirt and tie.’

In other words, we cannot situate time 3 except by reference to time 2 – the past perfect, if it is needed,  MUST BE used in conjunction with the past simple.

Time period 4

“When we first came (T2) to England, I couldn’t speak (T2) English properly. I remember (T1) that time very well. We had just arrived (3) from France, and while in France I had only spoken English with my English grandmother during her annual summer holiday visit. I had never really spoken English with my English mother, because my parents had used French together at home. I had begun (4) life as an English speaker because I had spent my first four years with my grandparents in England, as my mother had been ill. My father had continued to work in Lyon, where they had been living (5) since they had got married…..”

This is an example of how NOT to write a narrative in English. The problem is that there are five different time periods referred to. The writer has stuck to the principle that any event which happens before the events of the past simple time zone must use the past perfect. As a result, every verb from ‘had arrived (3)’ onwards is in the past perfect. This means that we begin to lose track of the time relations between the different actions and events. In fact, as the numbers show, the writer refers to five different time periods.

This is where the importance of the above table comes in. Suppose I have events taking place in the present, then at three different periods in the past. The first two past periods can be described using the past simple and past perfect. But what if I have an event in time 4? How can I make it clear that this is earlier than the events in time 3?

The answer was given in part 2 of this series: When I have a continuing narrative in a time period before the past simple (like an extended flashback), only the first couple of verbs are in the past perfect. After that I revert to the past simple:

“…We had just arrived (3) from France, and while in France I had only spoken English with my English grandmother during her annual summer holiday visit. I had  never really spoken spoke English with my English mother, because my parents had used used French together at home…”

Now look at the continuation:

“I had begun (4) life as an English speaker because I had spent my first four years with my grandparents in England, as my mother had been was ill. My father had continued continued to work in Lyon, where they had been living (5) since they had got married [OR – got married].”

By reverting to the past simple each time, as the narration of each flashback proceeds, we ensure that when we need to go further back in time again, there is no confusion, because we move from past simple to past perfect.

Concluding note

In using the words ‘past perfect’ in this analysis, we have made no distinction between the simple and the continuous forms of this tense. In reality, as we see in ‘had been living’ above, everything said about the past perfect relates equally to the continuous form of this tense, which therefore need not be looked at separately.

The past continuous and present perfect tenses in narrative writing

In parts 1-3 of this series, we have looked only at the role played by the past simple and past perfect in the development of a narrative. In the fourth and concluding part, we will explore the place occupied within this framework by the present perfect and past continuous tenses.