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13 Jul 2021, 02:53
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Is past perfect really necessary here? It sounds as if they "had lived" together but are no longer living together. And this makes no sense.
If we add the word "already", then past continuous seems just as good as past perfect?
"...that were married at the time of the survey were already living together when they decided to marry..."
"...that were married at the time of the survey had already lived together when they decided to marry..."
With past continuous, its clearer they are still living together.
Posted from my mobile device
If we add the word "already", then past continuous seems just as good as past perfect?
"...that were married at the time of the survey were already living together when they decided to marry..."
"...that were married at the time of the survey had already lived together when they decided to marry..."
With past continuous, its clearer they are still living together.
Posted from my mobile device
13 Oct 2023, 15:00
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Hey @GmatNinja. Is past perfect tense 'Had Lived' necessary here? I feel the context makes it pretty clear and we dont need past perfect.
13 Oct 2023, 15:51
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ahujaparth10
Normally, when we have "before" indicating the sequence of events, we don't need the past perfect to also indicate the sequence of events. In fact, normally, the use of the past perfect when "before" is also used is slightly illogical.
However, in this case, if we don't have the past perfect, then the meaning seems to be that married or engaged couples lived together making a final commitment, in other words, before becoming married or engaged, as if a couple that was already married or engaged could have done something before being married or engaged.
Of course that meaning doesn't make sense.
Thus, by using the past perfect "had lived," the sentence more clearly conveys the meaning that these married or engaged couples "had" engaged in the action of living together before making a final commitment, more clearly conveying that, while they are married now, they "had" done something else
Another way of looking at is that "had" is used to indicate that the other action occurred before the action indicated by the participles "married" and "engaged."
So, in this case, yes, the use of the past perfect is necessary.
