When I was in New York, I visited the Statue of Liberty.
When I was in New York, I had visited the Statue of Liberty.
- What is the meaning of sentence 2? Is it the same as sentence 1?
- Does it mean that I visited the Statue of Liberty before staying in New York? Or is it simply ungrammatical?
The answer to my previous question suggests that the past perfect with a when-clause referring to a time interval is appropriate in the following:
My friend asked me about the movie Spartacus. When I lived in Berlin, I had seen the movie thrice. So I could tell him that it was very good!
In this example, the time reference is his friend asking about Spartacus. The past perfect is used because his seeing the movie (the point of event) is anterior to the point of reference. Here the when-clause only works as a supplement.
In this question, I'd like to ask:
- How is the past perfect interpreted when it is used with a when-clause referring to a time interval without any other specific time of reference.
More specifically,
-
a) Can the past perfect be interpreted as the simple past (i.e. sentence 2 has the same meaning as sentence 1)?
-
b) Can the starting point of the interval (the time when I arrived in NY) be interpreted as the point of reference (I visited the Statue of Liberty in my previous stay in NY)?
I've been thinking about these possibilities since I read 5.4 Non-present perfects in CGEL, which I quoted in my previous question. In it there are two examples:
ii(a) He lost his key while he was running home.
ii(b) He had lost his key while he was running home.
And these two are considered to have the same meaning.
Best Answer
From my reading (I am not a linguist or even a serious student of English), I came to understand that one uses the past perfect only when there is something else related in time (that's a clumsy construction compared to your elegant one.) So,
It's not used in those cases by native English speakers. It sounds like something is missing. It sounds awkward. Without any other specific time referred to, it would be regarded as either a) an unfinished thought or b) the past tense expressed in a slightly awkward manner, or c) an affectation (trying - and failing - to speak in a more ???educated manner) or d) other.
This is not correct either. It's not a separate time, it's the same time, just a longer time interval. It sounds like an unfinished sentence,
Better:
That's not awkward. it sounds natural and correct to me, though many people might express it less formally in speech (I speak much less formally than I write.) So, less formally, but less technically "correct",
This is the best answer I can give. The linguists and grammarians can give better answers than I can.