He hasn't finished yet

He hadn't finished by yesterday evening

The past perfect for unfulfilled hopes and wishes

We can use the past perfect (or the past simple or progressive) with verbs like expect hope, mean, suppose, think want, to describe things we hoped or wished to do but didn't [> 11.42.3]:

/ had hoped to send him a telegram to congratulate him on his

marriage, but I didn't manage it

Obligatory and non-obligatory uses of the past perfect

We do not always need to use the past perfect to describe which event came first. Sometimes this is perfectly clear, as in:

After I finished,I wenthome The sequence is often clear in relative clauses [> 1.27] as well:

/ wore the necklace (which) my grandmother (had) leftme

We normally use the simple past for events that occur in sequence: / got out of the taxi, paidthe fare, tippedthe driver and dashedinto the station 7 came, I saw,I conquered,' Julius Caesar declared

But there are instances when we need to be very precise in our use of

past or past perfect, particularly with when:

When I arrived, Anne left(i.e.at that moment)

When I arrived, Anne had left(i.e. beforeI gotthere)

In the first sentence, I saw Anne, however briefly. In the second, I

didn't see her at all. See also indirect speech [> 15.12].

9 Verbs, verb tenses, imperatives

We normally use the past perfect with conjunctions like no sooner than or hardly/scarcely/barely when

Mrs Winthrop had no sooner leftthe room thanthey began to

gossip about her

Mr Jenkins had hardly/scarcely/barely begunhis speech whenhe

was interrupted