Breakdown of Ela disse que tinha tido outro pesadelo e acordou aterrorizada.
e
and
ela
she
ter
to have
acordar
to wake up
dizer
to say
outro
other
que
that (conjunction)
aterrorizado
terrified
o pesadelo
the nightmare
Questions & Answers about Ela disse que tinha tido outro pesadelo e acordou aterrorizada.
Wait, if the current lesson is about the past perfect subjunctive, why does this sentence use the indicative tinha tido?
Because she is reporting a past fact, not making an unreal comparison. If the sentence were 'She woke up as if she had had a nightmare,' you would use the subjunctive: acordou como se tivesse tido.... But here, it's just reported speech. The phrase Ela disse que (She said that) introduces a fact, so we use the indicative past perfect to show the nightmare happened before she spoke.
How does the double verb tinha tido work here?
This is the compound pluperfect indicative (Pretérito Mais-Que-Perfeito Composto), which translates perfectly to English as 'had had'. It is formed with the imperfect of the auxiliary verb ter (tinha) plus the past participle of the main verb, which happens to also be ter (tido).
Could I use the simple pluperfect form tivera instead of tinha tido?
Grammatically, yes: Ela disse que tivera outro pesadelo. However, at this level you have likely noticed that the simple pluperfect is mostly reserved for literature and highly formal writing. In everyday Portuguese, the compound form tinha tido is the natural choice.
Why does aterrorizada end in -a if it follows the verb acordou?
Because it is actually describing the subject (Ela), not the verb. Even though it follows acordou (woke up), aterrorizada functions as a predicative adjective describing her physical and mental state at the moment she woke up. Therefore, it must agree in gender and number with the feminine singular subject.
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