Tense and Parallelism – Correct Usage of ‘Why Did You Go There and Do/Did That?’

parallelismquestionstense

  1. Why did you go there and do that?
  2. Why did you go there and did that?

Why?

I feel the first sentence is correct but one of my friends argued that both the things are past, so, the sentence should have 'did' for the second thing too.

Isn't the 'did' in the beginning applicable for both 'go' and 'do'? If we have did in the second part, isn't it redundant?

I'm not a native English speaker. I apologize for any mistakes in advance!

Thanks for any help in advance!

Best Answer

The first sentence is correct.

"Why did you go there" puts the subject (you) of the sentence in the past and the verbs (go and do) describe the actions of the subject (you) which was already described to be in the past.

Technically if your friend was being consistent their argument would have been "Why did you went there and did that?" Which is very incorrect.