Question

Change the given sentence using ‘no sooner than’:
As soon as I reached the docks, the ship left.
A) No sooner had I reach the docks the ship left.
B) No sooner does he reached the docks than the ship left.
C) No sooner had I reached the docks than the ship left.
D) No sooner I reached the docks than the ship left.

Answer 1

Hint: Verb tenses tell us how an action relates to the flow of time. There are three main verb tenses in English: present, past and future.

Complete step by step answer:
One should also be careful about the tense while transforming the sentence. Here the sentence is in the past tense and the meaning of no sooner than means ‘it is used to convey that the second event mentioned happens immediately after the first’, therefore, the sentence can be transformed in two ways:

Option A) No sooner had I reach the docks the ship left – is an incorrect answer because ‘had’ is an auxiliary verb to form the past perfect and past progressive tense and the reach is action verb it should also be in the past tense i.e. reached. So, the tense in this sentence have been used inappropriately. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
Option B) No sooner does he reached the docks than the ship left - is an incorrect answer because ‘does’ is a question word when we want to ask yes/no question. However, we use does with first person singular pronoun and with singular noun forms and this option is grammatically incorrect. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
Option C) No sooner had I reached the docks than the ship left – is the correct answer because there are two ways the sentence could be grammatically correct one is - Simple past: No sooner did I reach the docks than the ship left and second is - Past perfect: No sooner had I reached the docks than the ship left. So, this option falls in
the past perfect tense and this is the correct answer.
Option D) No sooner I reached the docks than the ship left - is an incorrect answer because this statement is inappropriate. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
No sooner had I reached the docks than the ship left. (Option C is correct)

Note:
In the given question, the sentence the statement needs to be transformed using no sooner than. In this kind of transformation, no sooner is placed on the portion of the sentence describing the first event and the latter part of the event must be followed by it.No sooner is a phrasal verb which is always complemented with it. It is equivalent to the phrase as soon as. Both these phrasal verbs are used in sentences which talk about two activities happening simultaneously. For instance, in the given sentence:
I reached the dock
The ship left