Hey
VegitaHappy to help you with these questions.
Vegita wrote:
(B) restricting the use of water would continue because there had not been any appreciative increase in the river's level that
Would I be correct to say that 'had' is used as a simple past tense here? For a perfect past tense, we need a helping verb such as had resulted, had done, etc.
No, that would be incorrect. The verb in the clause "there had not been any appreciative increase in the river's level" is "
had (not)
been". The main verb is "been" and the helping verb is "had". This means that this verb is already in the past perfect tense.
Vegita wrote:
The phrase, "there had not been any appreciative increase in the river's level" sounds active rather than passive to me. Please correct me, if I am wrong because I read some users stating that the tone is passive.
Yes, you're right that this "clause" (not phrase) is not passive. Once again, we understand this from the verb "had been". The "be" verb is a
stative verb. This means that it is used to convey the state of the subject and not an action performed by the subject.
Stative verbs do NOT have any passive form. Only
Action Verbs (a.k.a Dynamic verbs) can have a passive voice.
For example:
a. I am Abhishek. (Stative verb "am". This sentence has no passive.)
b. I killed a mosquito. (Action verb "killed". This sentence has a passive: A mosquito was killed by me.)
Sentences such as 'a' above can, at best, be
inverted. For example, "The car is there", can be written as "There is the car". And this is precisely what we see in this official sentence, an inverted structure.
"
There had not been any appreciative increase in the river's level" is the
inverted form of "
No appreciative increase in the river's level had been there".
So, if anyone has mentioned that this clause is in the passive, they perhaps meant that it has been written in reverse or in a roundabout manner.
Vegita wrote:
(D) restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciable increase in the level of the river had
Even though this is the correct option, it uses the passive tone "no appreciable increase in the level of the river had". Correct?
No, this is incorrect. This clause is in the Active voice and not passive voice.
No appreciable increase in the level of the river had resulted from the showers.
The subject here is "no appreciable increase in the level of the river", and its
active verb is "had resulted". So, this clause is active and direct. This is one of the reasons why choice D is the best of the given choices.
One final observation:
I'm not sure whether you've identified this or not, but there is a Diction Error in the first two choices.
"Appreciative" Vs "Appreciable"
Appreciative = The quality of appreciating something
Appreciable = Substantial/Significant
Hence, the right word for the context is "appreciable" and not "appreciative". I hope this answers all your questions. Please revert for further clarification, if required.
Happy Learning!
Abhishek