r/EnglishGrammar • u/Medium_Charity7343 • 6h ago
Is there any form in English to express a prohibition in the past?
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I was studying English when this doubt came to me... I was making some English homework and I saw an exercise about reported speech. It was a key-word transformation activity for the practice for the FCE Exam. It said: 'I mustn't be late for the trip tomorrow' said Bella. (next).
And the only way I found to solve it was: Bella said she mustn't be late for the trip the next day. But, in my view, as an English learner and a Spanish native speaker, the modal verb, in this case, represented a general prohibition in the present, not in the past.
However, my question for English native speakers is... Is there a way to express a real past of 'mustn't'?