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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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 Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 10:06 pm Post subject: Grammar help please |
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| Later, when the timber on the penninsula had depleted, wood had to be brought from some distance. |
So, the question I was asked was, how come is is "had depleted" and not "had been depleted".
The person that asked me said that depleted is a transitive verb, therefore there has to be "been".
I think you shouldn't have "been" in the sentence, and that it is fine the first way. Can someone give me a concrete answer? |
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wings
Joined: 09 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 11:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Deplete is a transitive verb, so you need the "been" in this case becuase the sentence is in passive voice. |
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Girlygirl
Joined: 31 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 12:01 am Post subject: |
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| Had been depleted would be correct since it's a in passive form. Look at it this way: people deplete timber (timber does not deplete on its own) |
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Tobias
Joined: 02 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 2:47 am Post subject: |
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| If it's a past perfect passive construction, it's had + been + past participle. And timber needs an agent to be depleted here, so it must be in passive voice. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 3:02 am Post subject: |
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| ^ Yes. You could say 'after people had depleted the wood', but you'd have to put it into the active voice. |
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