Breakdown of O jornal publicou que o diretor tinha desmentido o boato.
ter
to have
o diretor
the director
o jornal
the newspaper
que
that (conjunction)
o boato
the rumor
publicar
to publish
desmentir
to deny
Questions & Answers about O jornal publicou que o diretor tinha desmentido o boato.
Why do we use tinha desmentido instead of the simple past desmentiu?
This sentence is an example of reported speech. Because the reporting verb publicou is in the past tense, the action that happened even earlier gets shifted further back into the past. The original statement o diretor desmentiu o boato shifts from the simple past to the compound past perfect (tinha desmentido).
How exactly is the tense tinha desmentido formed?
It is formed by using the imperfect tense of the auxiliary verb ter (which gives us tinha for he/she/it) followed by the past participle of the main verb desmentir (which is desmentido). This creates the Portuguese equivalent of the English had done something.
Is the verb desmentir related to the word for lying?
Could we use the verb haver instead of ter for the past perfect here?
Grammatically yes, you could say havia desmentido. However, in everyday spoken and written European Portuguese, using ter is much more common for compound tenses like this one.
Learn O jornal publicou que o diretor tinha desmentido o boato and more in Portuguese
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free