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I don't understand the timing in the following sentence:

It had started to snow by 10 a.m. yesterday.

I don't understand when it started to snow. And did it finish or is it still snowing?

Is this related to the difference between:

It had started to snow by 10 a.m. yesterday.

and

It started to snow by 10 a.m. yesterday.

Mitch
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xBlind
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2 Answers2

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It had started to snow by 10 a.m. yesterday.

Yes, this sentence is grammatical and natural.

First, we must acknowledge that the past perfect ("had started") is distinct from the past indicative ("started").

"Had started" is the past perfect form of the verb "to start." Past perfect is typically used to describe an event that occurred and ended before another one (which also occurred in the past). There are other uses for this tense, but this is the one that is applicable to your situation.

Let’s look at why saying “had started” is likely the best tense to use in this situation. As I wrote above, the past perfect describes an event that occurred and ended before another event in the past. In this case, we want to say that the beginning of the snow falling came before 10 a.m. yesterday. This means that our first event (snow starting to fall) starts and ends before our second event (10 a.m. yesterday). When I say that the first event “ends,” remember that the event is the snow starting to fall; therefore, the snow has already started to fall before 10 a.m. yesterday.

The past indicative tense (also known as the “simple past”) is typically used to describe actions that were completed at a specified time. There are other uses, but this is the one that is applicable to your situation. Although the action (snow beginning to fall) was completed in the past, it’s time is unspecified. We know it happened before 10 a.m. yesterday, but we don’t know exactly when; therefore, the past indicative tense would be incorrect in this situation.

  • so "It had started to snow by 10 a.m. yesterday.". means that it started to snow before 10 a.m. and stopped before 10 a.m. maybe it started to snow at 9:30 and stopped at 9:55 that's correct? – xBlind Jul 28 '20 at 14:22
  • No. What I mean by "ended" is "the snow *starting* to fall has ended by 10"). Since the snow *starting* to fall is an instantaneous action, it was started and completed at the same time (before 10). The snow *falling* (not starting* to fall*) doesn't necessarily end before 10. Please let me know if this clears things up a little bit. –  Jul 28 '20 at 14:28
  • I've read your comment again, but this time I understood that. Since we use the perfect past tense to show two completed actions in the past, first one is perfect past and second one is simple present. so that means " it had started to snow" is the action that done before the time 10 a.m., but the sentence don't have information when it finished. – xBlind Jul 28 '20 at 14:56
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    @xBlind You are correct that "it had started to snow" is the action before 10, and the sentence doesn't specify when it stopped snowing. However, what do you mean by "two completed actions in the past, first one is perfect past and second one is simple present"? –  Jul 31 '20 at 09:19
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It had started to snow by 10 a.m. yesterday, and by noon I knew the driveway would be covered . . .

Note that you could say “It was snowing by 10 a.m. yesterday . . .”

It started to snow around 10 a.m. yesterday, and it was still snowing at noon. By 5 p.m. I had shoveled the driveway, but this morning it was covered again. I will have to shovel again if I want to get the car out of the garage today.

The correct verbs cannot be determined in isolation. But in general you can avoid the past perfect, e.g., instead of “by 5 p.m. I had shoveled the driveway”, you could say “I shoveled the driveway at 5 p.m., but this morning . . .

Xanne
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