type II

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Trex  #394280  Fri, 20 Jul 07 11:34 AM

If I go on bended knee to the boss, do you think she'd give me my job back? (Longman)

Why "would give"? "going on bended knee" is real. Why isn't it "will give"? why is it imaginary?

  
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Yankee  #394308  Fri, 20 Jul 07 01:31 PM

Hi Trex

Your sentence is a "mixed conditional".  Perhaps the writer at Longman thought that begging/pleading (on bended knee) was far more probable than actually getting the job back.

  
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Trex  #394328  Fri, 20 Jul 07 02:57 PM
Thank you, Yankee.
  
Marius Hancu  #394409  Fri, 20 Jul 07 06:35 PM
The full form, more hypothetical, would be:

If I were to go on bended knee to the boss, do you think she'd give me my job back?

  
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Yankee  #394428  Fri, 20 Jul 07 07:44 PM

That's an interesting theory, but I'm not sure I can agree with it, Marius.  I think it would be highly unlikely for someone to simply drop 'were to'.  After all, it's only the 'were to' part that would make 'go' more hypothetical than probable.

If someone wanted that part of the sentence to sound more hypothetical (i.e. to match the more hypothetical second part), they would probably say "If I went on bended knee..." or the full "If I were to go on bended knee...".

As Trex's sentence is written, the "If I go" part sounds like something that the speaker is looking at as a real option, and not as a strictly hypothetical one.

  
CalifJim  #394457  Fri, 20 Jul 07 09:37 PM

If I go on bended knee to the boss, do you think she'd give me my job back? (Longman)

Why "would give"? "going on bended knee" is real. Why isn't it "will give"? why is it imaginary?

I take she'd give as she'll be willing to give --  in other words the "volitional" meaning of would, not the conditional (imaginary) meaning.  Nevertheless, it's a mixed conditional on the face of it.

It sounds wrong to me when the clauses are inverted and the contraction expanded:

Do you think (that) the boss would give me my job back if I [?go / went] to her on bended knee?

I think I'd have said:

If I went to the boss on bended knee, do you think she'd give me my job back?


Or, more realistically,

Even if I went to the boss on bended knee, she wouldn't give me my job back.  Surprise [:O]


CJ

  
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Peaceblinkfriend  #395048  Sun, 22 Jul 07 09:10 AM
Hi all,

Sorry to be off-topic here but I would like to know whether '...she wouldn't give me my job back' has the same meaning as '...she wouldn't give me back my job'?

Also, could say 'she wouldn't give my job back to me'?


Thank you.


Best wishes,

PBF
  
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Yankee  #395155  Sun, 22 Jul 07 01:44 PM

Yes, they all mean the same thing, PBF.

  
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