BlackBlitz  +  701334 Sat, 25 Apr 09 10:03 PM "If he invited you, then you should go." This sounds as if it's "real". But I can't find any examples of real conditionals with if clause = simple past, result = present. Is there something wrong with the sentence? BlackBlitz Clauses, Simple Past, Past Tenses, Conditionals, Writing, Sentences, Simple Tenses

	Best answer by MrPedantic  +  702025 Sun, 26 Apr 09 11:37 AM 1. If he invited you, you should go.   The speaker here assumes the truth of the statement in the if-clause: the purpose is not to present a hypothesis, but to draw an inference from an accepted fact.   "If" therefore has a meaning that is close to "since", as Ant suggests. If-statements of this kind can involve almost any combination of tenses.   Cf. if-statements where the purpose is indeed to present a hypothesis:   2. If he invites you, you should go. 3. If he invited you, you would go. 4. If he had invited you, you would have gone. 5. If he were to invite you, you would go. 6. Should he invite you, you would go. 7. If he had invited you, you would now be going.   All the best,   MrP MrPedantic

	Ant_222  suggested by English_Learner123  +  701361 Sat, 25 Apr 09 10:48 PM It is not a conditional at all ) If = "Because": Because he invited you, you should go. You should  go because he invited you. Ant_222 Joined on Sun, May 21 2006 Podolsk, Russia Contributing Member 1,717

	AlpheccaStars  +  701375 Sat, 25 Apr 09 11:25 PM It's probably a typo. It's easy to make because the "d" is next to the "s" on a keyboard and would not be caught by a spell-checker. If he invites you, then you should go. AlpheccaStars Joined on Sun, Oct 12 2008 Senior Member 3,508 The pen is mightier than the sword. Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873)

	Mr Wordy  +  701387 Sat, 25 Apr 09 11:49 PM The sentence seems fine to me. It would fit any of the following scenarios, with the first probably the most likely in practice.   Person was invited, speaker knows this. Person was invited, speaker doesn't know this. Person wasn't invited, speaker doesn't know this. Mr Wordy Joined on Tue, May 27 2008 Senior Member 2,359 Native British English speaker

	Mr Wordy  +  702095 Sun, 26 Apr 09 12:55 PM MrPedantic “1. If he invited you, you should go.   The speaker here assumes the truth of the statement in the if-clause: the purpose is not to present a hypothesis, but to draw an inference from an accepted fact.   "If" therefore has a meaning that is close to "since", as Ant suggests. ”   In this sentence, "if" may very well have the meaning of "since", but this is not necessarily so. For example, imagine the speaker says:   "Did he invite you then? If he invited you, you should go. Otherwise, there's no need to worry."   Here the speaker is not assuming the truth of the statement, and "if" cannot be replaced with "since".     Mr Wordy Clauses, Writing, Sentences

	MrPedantic  +  702121 Sun, 26 Apr 09 01:16 PM That's a good point. I also overlooked in my previous answer the fact that modal verbs may in any case disguise the structure of a genuine conditional sentence:   1. If he invited me, I couldn't go anyway = 2. If he were to invite me, I couldn't go anyway.   — which may well be the case here.   (I appreciate from similar questions elsewhere that the structure in #1 may sound odd to some non-BrE ears.)   MrP MrPedantic Verbs, Modals, Conditionals, Modal Verbs, Sentences

	MrPedantic  +  739794 Wed, 20 May 09 05:53 PM I have some doubts, on reviewing the thread:   1. Did he invite you then? If he invited you, you should go. — at this point, the speaker assumes the truth of the statement.   2. Otherwise, there's no need to worry. — at this point, the speaker assumes the truth of a different statement ("If he didn't, there's no need to worry").   Taken together, the two incompatible statements indicate "absence of knowledge of the true situation".   This is different from the presentation of a hypothesis:   3. If he invited you, you would go.   In cases like #3, it seems to me, "should" is not entirely comfortable.    MrP MrPedantic

	Mr Wordy  +  739950 Wed, 20 May 09 07:24 PM MrPedantic “In cases like #3, it seems to me, "should" is not entirely comfortable.”   "If he invited you, you would go" is looking to an unknown event in the future. In the context we're discussing, "If he invited you, you should go" is, as you say, indicating absence of knowledge of the true situation. The person may or may not have been invited, but the speaker doesn't know. "should" is fine; it simply means "ought to" (as it usually does in modern English). It doesn't have any complicated conditional function. "If he invited you (in the past), you ought to go." Mr Wordy Conditionals, Countries, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Context, Languages