the United States HAD BEEN at waR

[dddanny2006]

The books says that the later past event does not need to be expressed with a Simple past tense verb.You could just use a date or another time reference.

Right:By 1945,the United States HAD BEEN at war for several years.---Please clarify this sentence

Could you also give me sentence where the above could have been achieved from--(Replacing the simple past with a Time frame)

According to the book,you can make a very tricky sentence in which the first clause expresses an early action in Simple Past.Then,a second clause expresses a later action in Past perfect to indicate continued action

What I had earlier understood was that the earlier event had to be in Past Perfect and the later past event had to be in Simple past formats,but in the above sentence they say that the later past event can be replaced by a date or another time reference---Could anybody clear this doubt as to how it happens?

Lets look at another sentence below:

The band U2 WAS just one of many new groups on the rock music scene in the early 1980's,but less than ten years later ,U2 HAD fully eclipsed its early rivals in the pantheon of popular music.

The earlier action 'WAS' is in simple past despite being a earlier past event,in comparison to 'HAD FULLY ECLIPSED' which despite being a later past event holds a Past Perfect verb tense.
This is exactly the opposite of the theory that deals with Past Perfect tenses.I know that I'm missing something.Please help me out here.


Thanks,

Dan

[RonPurewal]

The U2 sentence is composed of two different, independent sentences, linked by "but".

The key there is "two different, independent sentences". The sentences are different and independent, so you should analyze the tenses for each individual component sentence.
If you look at the two sentences individually, the tenses will make perfect sense.

The rule you have in mind applies when the two actions are NOT expressed in individually complete sentences.
E.g., By the time he was 40 years old, Martin had gone insane.
"(By) the time he was 40 years old" is not an independent sentence; it's a part of the same sentence. This is when your analysis applies.

[aflaamM589]

but creates a wall here, just like it creates wall for modifiers.
Am i right Ron?

[tim]

What exactly do you mean by a "wall"?