Tuesday, July 3, 2012

What tense to use with when along with past perfect

Consider this sentence:




He had felt this pain earlier, when he drew the bow.


My intuition would be that the sentence is incorrect, and that the correct form is:



He had felt this pain earlier, when he had drawn the bow.


That being said, I remember from school that the future form would be something like He will feel this pain later, when he draws the bow., which goes against my intuition already... so I'm not sure what to think.




Which form is correct? (Is it maybe both? If so, is there a distinction?)
Is there some sort of rationale behind it, encompassing both the past and future cases?



Edit: To clarify, my question is about the rationale behind the future case He will feel this pain later, when he draws the bow., and how that rationale applies to other tenses like when the past perfect is involved



Edit 2: I understand that the past form of He feels this pain when he draws the bow. is He felt this pain when he drew the bow. What I don't understand is why adding anteriority wouldn't result in He had felt this pain when he had drawn the bow., and for that matter why the future form isn't He will feel this pain when he will draw the bow.. What are the rules here?

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