The Grammaring Guide to English Grammar with Exercises

Past perfect subjunctive

The past perfect subjunctive has the same form as the past perfect tense:

HAD + PAST PARTICIPLE

It is used in subordinate clauses and expresses unreal past situations:

I wish they

had arrived

on time.

(They didn't arrive on time.)

I would've bought the dress if there

hadn't been

such a queue.

(There was a long queue, so I didn't buy the dress.)

She would rather I

had gone

to bed earlier.

(I didn't go to bed early.)

He seems as if he

hadn't slept

for days.

(He seems not to have slept for days, but he has.)

Related topics:

The forms of the participle

Unreal tenses

Third conditional

Wishes about the past

AS IF / AS THOUGH

WOULD RATHER / WOULD SOONER + clause with the past perfect subjunctive

Appendix: irregular verb forms