Laker7 wrote:
I understood the first sentence but not the one with U2. It is very confusing to me because the second sentence states "10 years later" and then comes past perfect even though their action came after 1980s.
A verb should be in past perfect if that the verb occurred before another action. But here it is not the case yet past perfect was used. Why is that so? It has to do something with continued effect but I do not get it.
though i can explain but certainly not as good as an instructor does. Here is what Emily
mgmat has to say
Generally, when you have two verbs in a sentence, one simple past and one past perfect, the timeline from earliest to latest event is (1) past perfect, (2) simple past, (3) now.
When we arrived at the theater, the movie had started.
Timeline: (1) movie began, (2) we arrived, (3) now.
In this exception:
The band U2 was just one of the many new groups on the rock musis scene in the early 80s, but less than ten years later, U2 had fully eclipsed its early rivals in the pantheon of popular music."
Timeline: U2 a new group (early 80's), U2 eclipses rivals (sometime in 80's), U2 top of pantheon of music (early 90's).
It's truly a tricky sentence, as the past perfect action happens before a certain implied event, which is simply the conclusion of that action. The main thing to note is that you could never make this exceptional use of the tense without very careful use of the time-indicating phrases in italics above.
hope the expl helps
u can also check out the link.
https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/the ... t8017.html