- What was the name of the person who phoned?
I'm wondering what does this question really mean? Does it mean:
- What is the name of the person who phoned?
but why was instead of is?
or means
- What was the name of the person who had phoned?
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1The use of past tense here indicates when the information was collected, not necessarily that it has changed. There is no semantic difference between the first and second statements. The use of pluperfect in the third sentence indicates an activity that was ongoing or had some duration, which does alter the meaning somewhat. – geekahedron May 20 '19 at 18:42
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1It is customary in English to make tenses agree in such cases. As you study more, you will start noticing this all the time. We say "I didn't know Fred was a doctor" even if Fred still is a doctor. We ask "What was the name of that guy we met yesterday", even though that still is his name, and indeed is likely to remain his name literally forever, even after his death. We say "I didn't know the Earth was round", we say "I didn't know 2 plus 2 was four", and we say "I thought New Jersey was in Europe". It's a perfectly normal thing to do in English. – RegDwigнt May 20 '19 at 18:53
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@RegDwigнt Indeed if the fact is no longer the case, one might well need, for clarity's sake, to say so e.g. "I didn't know that he was only twelve years old, at that time." – WS2 May 20 '19 at 19:39