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The past perfect with future time reference

Renaat Declerck

English Language and Linguistics / Volume 1 / Issue 01 / May 1997, pp 49 - 61

DOI: 10.1017/S1360674300000356, Published online: 12 September 2008

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1360674300000356

How to cite this article:

Renaat Declerck (1997). The past perfect with future time reference. English Language
and Linguistics, 1, pp 49-61 doi:10.1017/S1360674300000356

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 ENG. LANG. LING. 1(1): 49-61 (1997)

The past perfect with future time reference

RENAAT DECLERCK
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
(Received 3 July 1996; revised 9 September 1996)

The standard analysis of the past perfect is that it represents the time of a situation as
anterior to a time of orientation which is itself past with respect to the time of speech.
However, there are a couple of uses in which the situation referred to actually lies in the
future. This article concentrates on one of these uses, illustrated by sentences like Soon
you will again be able to do all the things that you had done before. In this use, the past
perfect refers to the future and there does not seem to be a past time of orientation at
all. The article not only attempts to account for this use of the past perfect but also
offers an explanation for the fact that the same tense cannot be used in other, seemingly
similar, sentences, such as the following: [If you peep through this hole in the curtain] you
will see the audience that {have/*had} come to see the play.

It is common knowledge that the English past perfect can be used either as a 'modal
past perfect' expressing unreality (as in If he had been here, he would have helped us)
or as a tense form that is used to locate a situation in time in a particular way.1
What is less obvious is that this perfect form of the past tense can actually be used to
refer to the post-present (future). This is true not only of the modal use (as in If you
had come tomorrow instead of today, you would not have found me at home) but also
of the purely temporal use. As far as I know, the latter possibility has never been
discussed in the literature. It is the purpose of this article to fill this gap.
For lack of space, I will not analyse the past perfect in detail or go into the
various questions that are raised by such an analysis.2 What I will do in this paper is
draw attention to a peculiar use of the past perfect and attempt to account for it.
The use in question is exemplified by the following sentence, which I heard spoken
on the BBC:
(1) Soon you will again be able to do all the things that you had done before.
The standard analysis of the past perfect is that it represents the time of a situation
as anterior to a time of orientation which is itself past with respect to the time of
speech. The anteriority relation in question may be of two kinds. In some cases the
situation is completed before the past time of orientation (as in He told me when the
others had left), in others it is a situation that started before the time of orientation
and continues into it (as in When I arrived they had been there for two hours). For
ease of reference I will speak of the 'noncontinuative' and the 'continuative'
interpretation, respectively. The problem with (1) is that there would not seem to be
1
I will adhere to the convention of using situation as a cover-term for anything that can be described in a
clause, whether it is an action, an event, a process, or a state.
2
A detailed discussion of the past perfect is to be found in Declerck (1991: 354-69).
50 RENAAT D E C L E R C K

a past time of orientation at all. There is no reference to such a time in the sentence
itself, and when I heard it, it was not couched in a context involving any reference to
the past. As a matter of fact, sentences like (1) are fully interpretable in isolation.
(Other examples making this clear will be presented below.) How then can we
account for this use of the past perfect?
Though it is in principle possible to tackle this question in isolation, I believe it
can be done more fruitfully within the framework of a more general theory of tense.
The framework I will make use of is that proposed in Declerck (1991). I will begin
by sketching the general outlines of this model, limiting myself to those principles
that will prove to be directly relevant to the subject under investigation.
The starting-point of the theory is that the use of a tense form in English implies
that the speaker views the time of the situation referred to as either past or nonpast
with respect to the 'temporal zero-point' (which is usually the moment of speech).
That is, any tense form locates its situation either in the 'past time-sphere' or in the
'present time-sphere'. These time-spheres are not objective physical entities but
represent the ways in which an English language user conceptualizes time. The past
time-sphere is conceived as a time-span of indefinite length which lies wholly before
(and hence does not include) the moment of speech.3 The present time-sphere is
conceived as a time-span of indefinite length which includes the time of speech and is
divided by it into three 'sectors': the 'pre-present sector', the 'present sector', and the
'post-present sector'. This linguistic conceptualization of time can be represented as
in figure 1. (In this diagram the time-line is represented as consisting of two time-
spheres. The dotted line in the middle of the time-line is meant to represent the fact
that there is felt to be a break between them. The symbol 't 0 ' represents the temporal
zero-point (i.e. the moment of speech).)4

PAST PRE-PRESENT *0 POST-PRESENT

PRESENT

Figure 1 The conceptualization of the time-line by English-speakers

For ease of reference we can use the term 'absolute sectors' to refer to the above
three sectors plus the past time-sphere. (I call these time-spans 'absolute' because
they are defined in direct relation to the moment of speech.) The four tenses that are
used to locate situations in one of these four sectors can therefore be called 'absolute

3
In some cases the temporal zero-point is not the moment of speech (i.e. the coding time) but the
decoding time (see Comrie, 1985: 16; Fillmore, 1976: 93). This possibility will be disregarded in this
article.
4
This representation of the time-line is the best I can come up with, but is infelicitous in that it might
suggest that the time referred to by the simple past tense is automatically earlier than that referred to by
the present perfect. It should be clear from the text that this conclusion is false.
 THE PAST PERFECT WITH FUTURE TIME REFERENCE 51

tenses'. It is typical of an absolute tense that it relates the time of its situation
directly to the moment of speech (by locating it in one of the absolute sectors) and
not to the time of another situation or to another time of orientation. The tenses
that can be used as absolute tenses are the past tense, the present perfect, the present
tense, and the future tense.5 (Needless to say, they refer to the past, the pre-present,
the present, and the post-present, respectively.)
When two situations are located within the same sector, there are in principle two
possibilities: either both of them are represented as related to the time of speech, or
one situation is related to the time of speech while the second is related to the first.
To capture these possibilities we need the notion of'temporal domain'. A (temporal)
domain is a set of times which are related by tense forms. Such a set may be a
singleton (i.e. consist of the time of a single situation), but in most cases it comprises
the times of several situations that are temporally related to each other by means of
tense forms. A temporal domain is established by an absolute tense form and
expanded by one or more relative tense forms. For example, in (2a) slept is an
absolute past-tense form, which establishes a domain which is not further expanded
(i.e. the set of times constituting the domain is a singleton). In (2b) there is also
reference to a single temporal domain, but this time the domain is expanded: it is the
set of the times of the four situations referred to.
(2) (a) Bill slept on the couch.
(b) John said that he was tired because he had worked hard all day, and that he
would go to bed early.

The tense structure of (2b) is represented by figure 2 (in which the past temporal
domain is represented by a Venn diagram). In (2b), said is an absolute tense form
which locates the time of its situation in the past sector and by doing so creates a
past time-sphere domain (or 'past domain' for short). The time of this situation can
be referred to as the 'central time of orientation' of the domain.6 (This is the only
time in the domain that is placed on the time-line: by convention only times that are
directly related to the moment of speech are placed on the time-line.) The times of
the situations referred to in the two that-cla.uses of (2b) are temporally related to this
central time of orientation. The time of the situation referred to by had worked is
temporally related (as anterior) to the time of the situation of John being tired. To
introduce a further couple of terms, I will say that the times of the situations referred
to in the three subordinate clauses of (2b) are 'temporally subordinated' or
'temporally bound'.7 In the case of the that-c\auses, the 'binding time' is the central

5
While acknowledging that there is an aspect of modality in the use of any verb form making a
prediction, I recognize the existence of a 'future tense'. Forms like will do and is going to do, which
locate a situation in the post-present, are considered to be instances of this.
6
Any time that can serve as the origin of a temporal relation expressed by a tense form is called a 'time of
orientation'. The basic time of orientation is the time of speech. Since a situation can be temporally
related to another, the time of a situation can also function as a time of orientation.
7
The term 'temporal subordination' (or 'tense subordination') is also used by Allen (1966), Tregidgo
(1979), and Wekker (1980). I prefer to use the term '(temporal) binding' in what follows, because this
52 RENAAT DECLERCK

time of orientation of the domain. The binding time of had worked is the time of the
situation referred to by was tired. When the time of a situation is bound, the tense
form used is a 'relative' tense form, i.e. a tense form that relates the time of its
situation to a time of orientation other than the moment of speech.8 For example,
the preterite form was in the first f/utf-clause is a relative tense form: unlike said,
which establishes the domain (and is therefore an absolute tense form), was expresses
a relation in the past domain, viz. the relation of simultaneity. Similarly, had worked
and would go are relative tense forms (but only the latter relates the time of its
situation to the central time of orientation).

Figure 2 The tense structure of (2b)

The above examples make clear that the preterite (past tense) can be used in two
ways: either as an absolute tense (establishing a past domain) or as a relative tense
(expressing simultaneity within a past domain).9 The past perfect and the conditional
tense, on the other hand, can only be used as relative tenses. Example (2b) also
shows that when the time of a situation is introduced into a domain, it need not be
related to the central time of orientation. The binding time of orientation may also
be the time of another situation in the domain.
A further thing to be noted is that there is only one system of relative tenses to
express relations in a past domain: we always use the preterite for simultaneity, the
past perfect for anteriority, and the conditional tense (or a form involving was/were

enables me to speak of both times involved in the temporal relation: the 'binding' time as well as the
'bound' one.
8
There are also tense forms (such as the future perfect) which both establish a domain and indicate a
relation in it. These may be called 'absolute-relative' tense forms - see below.
9
The claim that the English preterite can be used both as an absolute tense and as a relative one is
explicitly argued in Declerck (1995).
 THE PAST PERFECT WITH FUTURE TIME REFERENCE 53

going to) for posteriority, irrespective of whether the binding time of orientation is
the central time of orientation or the time of a bound situation. This is clear from
the following examples:
(3) (a) Bill left when John was at the office.
(b) Susan said that Bill had left when John was at the office.
(c) Susan said that Bill would leave when John was at the office.
In each case we use was for simultaneity, irrespective of whether the binding time is
the central time of orientation (said) or a time anterior (had left) or posterior (would
leave) to that. 10
Apart from the notion of domain, we also need the notion of 'shift of temporal
perspective'. It appears that when we expand a domain, the domain in question is
sometimes treated as if it belonged to another sector. A well-known example is
the so-called historical present: a situation that lies in the past is treated as if it
were a present situation. Another illustration is to be found in (4a-c). In each of
these sentences, the first clause establishes a pre-present domain. However, when
we develop this domain, it is treated as if it were a past one. That is, the central
time of orientation of the pre-present domain is treated as if it were a past time
of orientation, so that the tenses used to relate the times of other situations to it
are the relative tenses which we typically find in past domains: the past perfect
for anteriority, the past tense for simultaneity, and the conditional tense for
posteriority.
(4) (a) Has the woman ever told you that she had been beaten by her husband?
(b) Has the woman ever told you that she loved you?
(c) Have I ever promised that I would help you?
This kind of shift of perspective from the pre-present to the past is only possible if
the perfect form that establishes the pre-present domain is interpreted as a
noncontinuative perfect, i.e. when the situation it refers to is interpreted as having
come to an end before the moment of speech.
There is a similar shift of perspective in post-present domains. Once a post-present
domain has been established and we want to incorporate the time of another
situation into it, we treat the central time of orientation of the post-present domain
as if it were a present time of orientation (i.e. as if it included the time of speech or
coincided with it). This means that in order to relate the time of a situation to this
post-present time of orientation we use one of the same tenses as we use to relate the
time of a situation to the time of speech. In other words, the set of relative tenses
used to relate the time of a situation to the central time of orientation of a post-

10
Note that not any preterite form in a subordinate clause is a relative tense form. Some kinds of
subordinate clause allow the use of absolute tense forms. Thus in The teacher told us that Columbus
discovered America, not only the head clause but also the /Aaf-clause uses an absolute preterite. In this
case the situation of the r/iaf-clause is not temporally related to that of the head clause: both preterite
forms do no more than locate their situation in the past time-sphere.
54 RENAAT DECLERCK

present domain is the same as (or identical in form with) the set of absolute tenses.
This is clear from examples like the following:
(5) (a) (said while planning someone's murder)
If we dump his body in Soho after we have killed him, the police will think that
he was killed there.
(b) Next Friday my excuse for being late will be that I have been caught in a traffic
jam caused by a car accident on the M25.
(c) When you arrive in Tokyo, you will see that it is already dark.
(d) If I make up my mind to resign, you will be the first to hear when exactly I will
do so.
In each of these examples the head clause establishes a post-present domain and the
time of the situation referred to by the italicized verb is incorporated into it. Since
the speaker treats the central time of orientation as if it were the moment of speech,
s/he uses a 'pseudo-absolute' tense form in the noun clause. Thus, in (5a) was killed
does not locate its situation in the (true) past sector (defined relative to t0) but in the
'pseudo-past' (defined relative to the central time of orientation of the post-present
domain, which is treated as if it were t0). Similar remarks can be made in connection
with (5b-d). The four examples make clear that the tenses used to relate the time of
a situation to the central time of orientation of a post-present domain are the
preterite or present perfect for anteriority, the present tense for simultaneity and the
future tense for posteriority. In Declerck (1991) and Declerck & Depraetere (1995),
this system of tenses used to express a relation in a post-present domain is labelled
the 'Present Perspective System' (PPS). (This label captures the fact that this system
is based on a shift of perspective to the present: the post-present binding time of
orientation is treated as if it were the time of speech.)
Next to the PPS there is also a 'Future Perspective System' (FPS). This system
consists of tense forms that create a post-present domain. It comprises the future
tense in its absolute use as well as some 'absolute-relative' tense forms. The former
represents the time of the situation referred to as the central time of orientation of a
post-present domain. An absolute-relative tense form also establishes a domain but
represents the time of its situation as either anterior or posterior to the central time
of orientation. Examples of such tense forms are will have left and will be going to
leave, in which will establishes the domain and have left or be going to leave relates
the time of its situation to the central time of orientation of the domain."
When the time of a situation referred to by a PPS form (i.e. a pseudo-absolute

" The differences between the Present Perspective System and the Future Perspective System are
investigated in Declerck & Depraetere (1995). It is shown there that the use of PPS forms (e.g. the use
of a present tense to express simultaneity in a post-present domain) is restricted to some kinds of
subordinate clause (e.g. complement clauses, canonical conditional clauses, restrictive relative clauses,
etc.). In unembedded clauses and in the other types of subordinate clause (e.g. nonrestrictive relative
clauses) the post-present domain must be 're-established' by the use of an FPS form. Hence the
difference between (i) and (ii):
(i) You will be met by a man who is wearing a red tie.
(ii) You will be met by a man. He will be wearing a red tie.
 THE PAST PERFECT WITH FUTURE TIME REFERENCE 55

tense form) is the binding time of orientation for the time of another situation, it is
treated exactly as if the situation had been referred to by a true absolute tense form.
For example, in order to relate the time of another situation to the time of the
situation referred to by was killed in (5a) we use the same tenses as we use to express
relations in a past domain: the preterite for simultaneity, the past perfect for
anteriority, and the conditional tense for posteriority. This is clear from the
following example:
(6) (said while planning someone's murder)
If we dump his body in Soho after we have killed him, the police will think that he
was killed when he came home after he had attended the meeting at his club. They
will believe that he was murdered by the syndicate because he had said he would tell
the police the truth.
The tense structure of the first sentence of this example is represented by figure 3. It
is worth noting that all the situations referred to in (6) lie in the post-present, so
that had attended and had said illustrate a particular use of the past perfect with
future time reference. (In figure 3, the vertical dashed line represents the shift of
perspective: the post-present central time of orientation (will think) is treated as if it
were the temporal zero-point (moment of speech). The result is that was killed
locates the time of its situation at a pseudo-past time of orientation which is
included in the post-present temporal domain represented by the Venn diagram.)

Figure 3 The tense structure of (6)

Now that we know a little more about (some aspects of) the English tense system,
we can transfer our attention again to examples like (1). What we should especially
remember from the above remarks is that a situation that is anterior to the central
time of orientation of a post-present domain can be referred to by the past tense
(because such a post-present binding time behaves exactly like the time of speech)
56 RENAAT D E C L E R C K

and that a situation that is anterior to that pseudo-past situation is referred to by the
past perfect (as is illustrated by had attended and had said in (6)).
The sentence we set out to examine was the following:
(1) Soon you will again be able to do all the things that you had done before.
Similar examples involving the past perfect are:
(7) (a) If a local pressure group can achieve results, the interest may gather mo-
mentum. Individuals who had never considered taking part in public debate will
be attracted to the success of certain ventures. (Survey of English Usage)
(b) If you join our club, you will meet people that you had not dreamed of meeting
before.
(c) If we organize this festival, it will introduce jazz to people that had never
listened to jazz before.
What is intriguing is not only that the past perfect is used in these sentences, but also
that it cannot be used in other, seemingly similar, sentences:
(8) (a) If you peep through this hole in the curtain, you will see the audience that
{have/*had} come to see the play.
(b) I'm afraid he will again tell that joke which he {has/*had} already told several
times.
If the characterization of the past perfect given above is correct, we must assume
that in (1) and in (7a-c) the situation described in the past perfect is each time
located as anterior to a pseudo-past time of orientation (i.e. as anterior to a time
which lies before the post-present time referred to by the future tense) but which
remains implicit, i.e. which is not overtly referred to by a tense form or by an
adverbial. The analysis I will propose involves two hypotheses. Firstly, this implicit
pseudo-past time of orientation is usually the initial point of the situation referred to
by the future tense, though it may also be a time that is past with respect to this.
Secondly, the past perfect is only possible if the anterior situation is not seen as
being relevant to the situation referred to by the future tense: there must be no
causative, resultative, or continuative link between these situations. Only if this
condition is satisfied is it possible for the anterior situation to be temporally related
to the beginning of the post-present situation rather than to the latter situation as a
whole; in other words, only in that case can the beginning of the post-present
situation be considered as a (pseudo-)past time, i.e. as a time which is past with
respect to the situation itself.
This analysis appears to account for the various examples. In (1) the head clause
refers to a capacity that will be acquired again and the subordinate clause (in the
past perfect) makes clear that the capacity in question has already existed at some
time anterior to this reacquisition: the latter takes place independently of the former.
In (7a) the situation of never considering taking part in public debate is represented
as anterior to the beginning of the new situation (viz. the situation of people feeling
attracted to the success of certain ventures) but does not have any bearing on the
latter. (Instead there is a sense of contrast between the two situations.) Similarly, in
 THE PAST P E R F E C T WITH F U T U R E TIME R E F E R E N C E 57

(7b) the situation of not dreaming of meeting certain people is represented as

anterior to the beginning of the habitual situation of meeting them, but there is no
causative or resultative link between these two situations. And similar remarks can
be made in connection with (7c).
However, things are different in (8a-b). In (8a) there is a resultative link between
the two situations: we interpret (8a) something like (8a'):
(8) (a') If you peep through this hole in the curtain, you will see the audience that are
here as a result of having come to see the play.
This resultative link means that the coming must be represented as anterior to the
seeing and not as anterior to a time which is treated as past with respect to the
seeing. In other words, the second condition for the use of the past perfect is not
satisfied. The past perfect would effectively represent the coming as anterior to the
beginning of the seeing and represent the latter as past with respect to the situation
of seeing itself. This divorcing of the coming and the seeing is not possible if there is
to be a resultative link between the two.
Sentence (8b) can be accounted for in a similar way. Again we have to use the
present perfect (has told) because we have to express a resultative link between the
two situations: the intended interpretation is (8b').
(8) (b') I'm afraid he will again tell that joke which we already know as a result of his
having told it several times before.
The past perfect cannot express this meaning, for it would represent the past telling
as anterior to the beginning of the future telling, while treating that beginning as
past with respect to the future telling itself. This intervening past time of orientation
excludes the possibility of a resultative interpretation.
Let us now have a look at the following examples:
(9) (a) In future he will never again speak about a subject that he {has/*had} not
studied in detail.
(b) In future he will always speak about a subject that he {has/*had} studied in
detail.
(c) In future he will (always) speak about a subject that he {has/had} never spoken
about before.
(d) In future he will never again speak about a subject that he {hasfhad} never
spoken about before.

In (9a-b) the past perfect (had studied) cannot be used because there is to be a
resultative link: the intended readings are (9a'-b').
(9) (a') He will never again speak about a subject that he is not familiar with as a result
of having studied it in detail.
(b') He will always speak about a subject that he knows well as a result of having
studied it in detail.

In (9c) both the present perfect (has spoken) and the past perfect (had spoken) are
possible because there are two interpretations that make sense, viz (9c') and (9c"):
58 RENAAT DECLERCK.

(9) (c') He will always speak about a subject that is new because it will (each time) be
the case that he has not spoken about it yet.
(c") He will take up the habit of speaking about a subject that he had not spoken
about (before taking up the habit in question).
The former interpretation requires the present perfect form has spoken in (9c) and
implies that there are various subjects that will be treated. 12 Interpretation (9c") is
conveyed by the past perfect had spoken. On this reading, the situation of not
speaking about the subject is located before the beginning of the post-present
situation. The implication now is that it is the same subject that will be treated on
the various future occasions of speaking. It follows that the resultative idea 'Each
instance of speaking will concern a new subject' is absent here.
In (9d) the former type of interpretation (viz. 'He will never again speak about a
subject that is new') makes sense, but the latter kind of interpretation ('He will never
again take up the habit of speaking about a subject that he had never spoken about
(before taking up the habit)') seems more difficult to process and contextualize.
Hence the low acceptability of the past perfect.
One of the cornerstones of the above analysis is the observation that in order to
relate the time of a situation to the central time of orientation of a post-present
domain we use the same tenses as we use to relate the time of a situation to the time
of speech. This means that the use of the present perfect vs. the past perfect in the
above examples should not be affected if we replace the future tense in the head
clause by the present tense. This prediction appears to be borne out, as we see when
we consider the examples in (10), which are quite similar to the examples given so
far, except that the head clause refers to the present, and not to the post-present:
(10) (a) You are again able to do all the things that you had done before.
(b) Individuals who had never considered taking part in public debate are now
being attracted to the success of certain ventures.
(c) Thanks to our club you can now meet people that you had not dreamed of
meeting before.
(d) Through this hole in the curtain you can see the audience that {have/*had}
come to see the play.
(e) He is again telling that joke which he {has/*had} already told several times.
(f) He never speaks about a subject that he {has/*had} not studied in detail.
(g) He always speaks about a subject that he {has/*had} studied in detail.
(h) He (always) speaks about a subject that he {has/had} never spoken about
before,
(i) He never speaks about a subject that he {hasfhad} never spoken about before.
These sentences (and their interpretations) run completely parallel with what we
have observed in connection with (1) and (7)-(9). For example, in (lOh) (which runs
parallel with (9c)), the present perfect yields reading (10h'), while the past perfect

12
In this case the post-present situation is of the repetitive (or habitual) kind. It consists of a number of
subsituations, each of which can be described in terms of 'He will speak about a subject that is new
because he has not spoken about it before.' (Semantically this is similar to what we observe in Each
time he speaks about a subject in future, he will not have spoken about it before.)
 THE PAST PERFECT WITH FUTURE TIME R E F E R E N C E 59

yields reading (10h"). These interpretations resemble (9c') and (9c") in that the
former implies that the subjects treated are each time different, whereas the latter
implies that the speaker each time deals with the same subject.
(10) (h') He always speaks about a subject that is new because it is (each time) the case
that he has not spoken about it yet.
(h") He has taken up the habit of speaking about a subject that he had not spoken
about (before taking up the habit in question).
Similarly, in (lOi) the present perfect suggests the interpretation 'He never speaks
about a subject that is new', whereas the past perfect suggests the (less accessible and
less plausible) interpretation 'He never takes up the habit of speaking about a
subject that he had never spoken about (before taking up the habit).'
The following are some attested examples similar to the ones in (10) combining a
past perfect with a present tense:
(11) (a) (stage direction)
The procession music, which had been allowed to fade out, is brought up by
the opening of the study door. (T. Stoppard, Jumpers, London: Faber and
Faber, 1972, p. 26)
(b) Food for the party is now being cooked in the English style - after team
manager Walter Winterbottom had gone into the hotel kitchen to instruct the
chef, (cited in Edgren, 1971: 115)
Note that (1 la) is one of the rare examples in which the past perfect situation is not
interpreted as anterior to the beginning of the head-clause situation but as anterior
to an implicit time which, for pragmatic reasons, is interpreted as anterior to the
beginning of the head-clause situation. (I have hinted at this possibility above, but
have found no examples with the future tense in the head clause.)
It should be clear, then, that the possibility of using a past perfect in a subordinate
clause depending on a head clause in the present tense or future tense generally
depends on the possibility of treating the beginning of the present or post-present
situation as a time that is past with respect to the situation itself. We have observed
that this possibility is excluded if there is a resultative link between the two
situations. This does not mean, however, that it is always available when there is no
such link. In many cases when there is no link of result (or, more generally,
relevance) between the two situations we must use the past tense to refer to the
anterior situation because there is an adverbial relating the latter directly to the time
of speech (or to the relevant post-present time of orientation) rather than to the
beginning of the present (or post-present) situation:
(12) (a) He is now reading the book that I {gave/*had given} him last year. /
(b) He will be reading the book that I {gave/*had given} him the day before.

The clearest examples in which the past perfect is used are those in which the past
tense will not be used because the conditions for using a perfect form are satisfied,
and in which the perfect form in question cannot be a present perfect because the
meaning of this tense is incompatible with the context. Compare:
60 RENAAT D E C L E R C K

(13) (a) His popularity is so immense that people who {had/*have} never been to the
opera now often pay over £100 for a ticket.
(b) His popularity is so immense that people who {had/have} never been to the
opera will often pay over £100 for a ticket.
In both cases a perfect form is called for because never is interpreted as 'never in a
time-span leading up to (a particular time of orientation)'. As is well known, it is
typically one of the perfect tenses that is used to locate a situation in such a time-
span. If we use the present perfect, the situation is located in a time-span that leads
up to the moment of speech (as in I have never been to the opera.) In (13a) this use of
the present tense is unacceptable because the meaning of have never been to the opera
clashes with the statement that the people in question often pay a certain price for a
ticket, which implies that these people have already been to the opera. In (13b), on
the other hand, the present perfect is not impossible because we can interpret never
as 'never up to now (speech time)', which does not clash with the idea of a future
habit. However, the present perfect is not possible if never is to be interpreted as
'never up to then'.
It follows that a past perfect of this kind will never receive a continuative
interpretation: a continuative perfect represents the situation as continuing into the
relevant time of orientation, not as coming to an end at the (past) time when the
situation holding at the time of orientation began to hold. Compare:
(14) (a) People who have lived in London for many years will regularly attend these
meetings.
(b) People who had lived in London for many years will regularly attend these
meetings.
In (14a), have lived receives a continuative interpretation: the people in question will
still be living in London at the time of attending the meetings. In (14b), by contrast,
had lived is interpreted as a noncontinuative past perfect: the people in question will
no longer be living in London at the time of attending the meetings.
Concluding this article, we can say that an explanation has been offered for the
observation that a subordinate clause depending on a head clause in the present or
future tense may sometimes use the past perfect instead of the present perfect. The
explanation is that the past perfect functions as an instruction to look for a suitable
past time of orientation, to which the time of its situation can be interpreted as being
anterior. If the head clause refers to the present or the post-present and there is no
contextually given past time of orientation, it is the beginning of the head-clause
situation that is interpreted as being the past or pseudo-past time of orientation in
question. (Self-evidently this is only possible if the head-clause situation has a
certain duration, so that its beginning can be seen as past with respect to the rest of
the situation. In many cases it is of the habitual kind.)
The observation that this is possible is interesting from a theoretical point of view,
as it teaches us more about the ways that tenses can be used in order to locate
situations in time, and especially about the ways a situation can be temporally
related to another. One of the things we learn from this is that, however complex the
 THE PAST PERFECT WITH FUTURE TIME REFERENCE 61

English tense system may seem, it generates a huge number of possible tense uses by
means of a relatively small number of rules, since some of the rules can apply
recursively. The fact that the central time of orientation of a post-present domain is
treated as if it were the moment of speech opens up a host of possibilities, for the
moment of speech is the time in relation to which the four absolute sectors are
denned. The shift of perspective in a post-present domain thus entails the creation of
four pseudo-absolute sectors, and hence of pseudo-past, pseudo-pre-present, etc.
'subdomains', which can be expanded exactly like genuine past, pre-present, etc.
domains. (A more detailed discussion of subdomains and recursivity is to be found
in chapter 4 of Declerck, 1997.)

Author's address:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Universitaire Campus, E. Sabbelaan 53
B-8500 Kortrijk
Belgium
Renaat.Declerck@kulak.ac.be

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