Simple Past and Past Perfect

[rishabh26jain]

What is the difference between the following two sentences ?? Is there a difference in emphasis ???


Past Perfect :
Until 1984, he had not finished his education.

Simple Past :
Not Until 1984 did he finish his education.


What's wrong with the following sentence ?

Not Until 1984 had he finished his education.

[tim]

The first and third sentences are basically indistinguishable, and both are wrong for the same reason. Word order is very fluid in a sentence that expresses this thought, and the first and third sentence can both be rephrased as "He had not finished his education until 1984". Because you can get by with simple past in this case (which is why the second one is okay), the sentences with past perfect are incorrect..