pluperfect
Sign in to saveAlso known as plusquamperfect, plusquamperfectum
The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, characterizes certain verb forms and grammatical tenses involving an action from an antecedent point in time. Examples in English are: "we had arrived" before the game began; "they had been writing" when the bell rang.
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- tense
- Subclass of
- past tense
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- described by source
- Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
24 sectionsContents
- Meaning of the pluperfect
- Examples from various languages
- Greek
- Latin and Romance languages
- French
- Italian
- Judeo-Spanish
- Portuguese and Galician
- Romanian
- Sicilian and Pantesco
- Spanish
- Germanic languages
- Dutch
- English
- German
- Swedish
- Slavic languages
- Celtic languages
- In non-Indo-European languages
- Table of forms
- Different perfect construction
- See also
- References
- External links
The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, characterizes certain verb forms and grammatical tenses involving an action from an antecedent point in time. Examples in English are: "we had arrived" before the game began; "they had been writing" when the bell rang.
The word is derived from the Latin , "more than perfect". The word "perfect" in this sense means "completed"; it contrasts with the "imperfect", which denotes uncompleted actions or states.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “pluperfect” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.