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In reported speech the past perfect may represent any of three tenses in direct speech, according to the context: 1 "I've lost my wallet." (past perfect) = he said he had lost his wallet. 2 "I lost my wallet yesterday." (past simple) = He said he had lost his wallet the previous day. 3 "When I got home, I found I had lost my wallet" = He said that when he got home, he found he had lost his wallet. Note that in sentence 3 it is not necessary to change the past simple got and found, and it is impossible to change the past perfect had lost - we have reached the limits of the verb tense system. The relationship between the tenses is clear from the context, and we are hardly likely to misinterpret the report as representing: "When I get home I find I have lost my wallet." |