Hello Hela
1“Altogether, and so is the house in Portman Square. There never was anything more sad or desolate. You a) would find [original] / b) WILL FIND him altered, Mr Finn. He is quite an old man now.
a) Now, did the author use the conditional would find him because his character thought that Mr Finn had a SMALL chance to see Mr Kennedy since he is living in Germany?
— It might be easier to think of this as an implicit IF statement: 'You would find him altered, Mr Finn [if you were to see him]'.
b) And if I write WILL FIND would it mean that Mr Finn does have a chance to see him in the future? (= more likely and less doubtful ?)
— Yes; it means the speaker expects Mr Finn to see Kennedy.
c) and can the verb/tense WILL FIND work in combination with the past? i.e.
WILL FIND + WAS here... but STAYED..." i.e.
" Altogether, and so is the house in Portman Square. There never was anything more sad or desolate. You WILL FIND him altered, Mr Finn. He is quite an old man now. He was here in the spring, for a week or two — in England, that is; but he stayed at an hotel in London. [He and Laura live at Dresden now, and a very sad time they must have / MUST BE HAVING.” ]
— It works if you exclude the part I've put in square brackets. The speaker expresses an expectation that Mr Finn will see Kennedy; then gives additional information about K's recent doings. However, if you add the part in square brackets, it implies that Mr Finn doesn't know where K. and Laura are living, till the speaker tells him; and that seems strange, given that the speaker also expects Mr Finn to see K. shortly!
d) Do you think that it will work best with :
"He WILL BE here... but he WILL STAY / WILL BE STAYING / IS STAYING in London."
— 'Will be staying' is fine; but perhaps 'will stay' would better suit the speaker's style.
In this instance, the speaker expects Mr Finn to see K. shortly; but has to tell Finn where K. will be staying. A possible context might be: Mr Finn has expressed his determination to see K., but has also revealed that he has no idea when K. will next come to England, or where he will stay.
e) or do the 2 passages have no relation with one another / are quite independent from one another?
— I think possible contexts could be found, whether or not we linked the sentences.
2) In “No one, no other human being in the world, will be so interested for you as she is.” [original text]
a) If we consider the auxiliary used at the end of the sentence “is”, the normal guess would be IS in the first clause. Right ?
— Yes, I would say so.
b) Now, the choices of will be [original tense] (likely action in the future ?) and WOULD BE (possible action in the future ?) should not affect the auxiliary used in the second clause “IS”, should it ?
— To my ears, this combines 3 senses of 'will':
i) intends to (be)
ii) is accustomed to (be)
iii) will prove to (be)
'would' would make the statement more remote and so less emphatic.
In both cases, 'is' would be fine.
3) Same question about “WOULD FEEL” in “If any friend ever felt an interest almost selfish for a friend’s welfare, she WOULD FEEL such an interest for you.” [original = “will feel” = mixed conditional = 2 + 1]
— I'm not sure the original is a mixed conditional, as the verb in the IF clause seems to me to be an indicative past tense, rather than a 'hypothetical' (subjunctive) past tense. But I'll have to think about this one a little more, as I'm not sure I can explain it even to myself at the moment...
a) “WOULD FEEL” would mean that at that moment of speaking the speaker was not sure if Mrs Kennedy was interested in Mr Finn’s future in politics. Right ?
b) but with “WILL FEEL” the speaker is sure of Mrs Kennedy’s feeling and interest for Mr Finn. Right ? (I’d like to understand the subtlety between both tenses)
— Will ponder and report back tomorrow on these two questions...
4) What about the “WILL” form in the following sentence, can it be accepted ? i.e.
“If you were to succeed it WILL GIVE her a hope in life.” [the text gives “would give” = type 2 conditional]
a) is the mixed conditional possible here or not ?
= the speaker is not sure that Mr Finn is going to succeed but if ever this happened he is sure of Mrs Kennedy’s reaction.
— A mixed conditional of this kind is certainly possible in ordinary spoken English, as people often change their conditionals in mid sentence; but I don't think it suits the situation here.
b) type 2 conditional =
since the speaker doesn’t think that Mr Finn will succeed, he knows therefore that Mrs Kennedy is never going to have such a hope.
— I read the 'if you were to V, it would V2' structure as fairly neutral, in terms of what the speaker expects to happen. This kind of type 2 distances the speaker from the hypothesis; but to my ears, it always has an air of 'fine balancing of the possibilities'.
5) After a long thought, I wonder if I can really use PARTED and WERE in the following sentence. If ever you think it possible, would you please tell me why?
a) Original = “They hadn't seen each other for..., and when they had parted (before the time of narration), though they had lived --or HAD BEEN LIVING--, there had been (at that same time) no signs of still living friendship.”
b) so what is the logic when we write :
“They hadn't seen each other for..., and when they PARTED, though they had lived, there WERE no signs of still living friendship.”
— You could think of it in this sense – I've changed it to bring out the logic:
"When we bumped into each other at the Savoy last week, it was the first time we had seen each other for 10 years. When we got divorced, you see, although we had been married for 12 years, there were no children; and so we had no reason to see each other."
(Or have I misunderstood the question?)
Will return to deal with that other petite bête (#3) tomorrow!
Bye for now,
MrP
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