[Grammar] I told her that I had lied to... that I needed/had needed money to buy some books.

[wotcha22]

1. I told her that I had lied to my mother that I needed money to buy some books.

2. I told her that I had lied to my mother that I had needed money to buy some books.


Sentence 1 is from a high school English text book for Korean, and I wonder why there is a past tense

not past perfect like sentence 2.


Is sentence 1 grammatical? If then, what about sentence 2?

 

[Roman55]

I am not a teacher.

Both 1. & 2. would be possible depending on the context, but 1. seems to be the more natural in the absence of additional information.

The sentence means, "I told her that I had lied to my mother (about the fact/when I said) that I needed money to buy some books."

If you needed money at the time then that is what you should say.
If you had needed money at the time then you say that.

There is no need for the past perfect just because it is used in the first part of the sentence. It is required only if it makes sense.

 

[tzfujimino]

Hello, wotcha.:-D
I agree with Roman.

[STRIKE]1. I lied to my mother that I need money to buy some books. You need the money now.
2. I lied to my mother that I needed money to buy some books. You needed the money at some point in the past.

If you can understand the difference between the two sentences above, then you'll be able to understand these as well (backshifting):

1a. I told her that I had lied to my mother that I needed money to buy some books.
2a. I told her that I had lied to my mother that I had needed money to buy some books.
[/STRIKE]
I hope you'll understand what I mean.

 

[Tdol]

I told her that I had lied to my mother about needing money to buy some books would work better for me.

 

[Raymott]

It's not common in English to say "He lied that he needed books." or "She lied that ..."
You have a few suggestions about how to improve it, but I'm not sure whether those posters also find "I had lied that ..." to be ungrammatical. Is that a possible construction in Korean?

 

[tzfujimino]

:shock:...

I forgot that 'lie' is an intransitive verb. (Thank you, Raymott.)
'lie + that-clause' is not grammatical.
I was only thinking about the 'backshifting' when I created my post above.
I'd like to express my sincere apology to all of you.