[will] optional?

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New2grammar

#510199 Tue, 06 May 08 06:01 AM

if you help me take my car in for repair, I'll do your laundry tonight and you [will] get to watch Superbowl

If you screw this up, your team will lose 5 points and the other team [will ]get 3 points.

If you give me 10 bucks, I'll wash your car and Tom [will] take out the trash.

If not every sentence above requires 'will',please explain why. Thanks.

New2grammar

Joined on Tue, Nov 21 2006

Veteran Member (7,670)

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Creativeguru

#510200 Tue, 06 May 08 06:08 AM

If you help me take my car in for repair, I'll do your laundry tonight and you also get to watch Superbowl>>>In this sentence we do not require 'will' as we are addressing to the same person.

If you screw this up, your team will lose 5 points and the other team will get 3 points>>>In this sentence we will use 'will' as we are not talking about the same team but for the other team

If you give me 10 bucks, I'll wash your car and Tom will take out the trash>>>Here also the same case as in the above sentence as 'I will wash your car and tom will take out the trash,' here i am specifying my role and Tom's role.

Creativeguru

Joined on Fri, Feb 8 2008

India

Regular Member (733)

New2grammar

#510909 Wed, 07 May 08 06:33 PM

Thanks Creativeguru.

Anyone else would like to comment? I would like a second opinion. Thanks

New2grammar

Marius Hancu

#510915 Wed, 07 May 08 07:02 PM

You need the will, otherwise it's too sloppy/informal (still understandable).

http://www.englishpage.com/conditional/presentconditional.html
http://www.englishpage.com/conditional/futureconditional.html

Marius Hancu

Joined on Wed, Apr 26 2006

Montreal, Canada

Veteran Member (11,673)

Conditionals

Kooyeen

#510921 Wed, 07 May 08 07:14 PM

Hmm, technically speaking you need that WILL, otherwise the structure will change (but the meaning might or might not change).

If you screw this up, your team will lose 5 points and the other team [will ]get 3 points.
If you take away that WILL are joining these two:
If you screw this up, your team will lose 5 points. + If you screw this up, the other team gets 3 points.
Not much of a problem though, the meaning is the same to me, but it depends... the last example wouldn't sound good to me (Tom takes out the trash). Note I used "gets", not the bare infinitive "get".

If the subject were the same, you could leave out the auxiliary verb though: If you give me 10 bucks, I'll wash your car and take out the trash.

Just my opinion. Smile

Kooyeen

Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005

Italy

Senior Member (3,973)

If you don't have a sense of humor already, it's about time you buy one.

Verbs, Auxiliaries

New2grammar

#510922 Wed, 07 May 08 07:14 PM

Thanks MH for your reply.
I think I understand the conditionals. My confusion arises when there are two
independent main clauses in a conditional sentence. Note that each of my examples
have two main clauses, each having one will. The second will is what bothers me.
Strictly speaking, I will include but I've heard native speakers say without but I'm
not sure whether it's context dependent, therefore, I posted a couple of examples in
different contexts to find out.

If I understand you correctly, you recommend to include the second 'will'. Thanks in advance.

(Edit. Thanks Kooyeen. It seems like we see eye to eye on this.)

New2grammar

Clauses, Conditionals

CalifJim

#510930 Wed, 07 May 08 07:42 PM

It is almost redundant to say, at this point in the thread, that the use of will twice is probably best when the clauses have two different subjects.

Nevertheless, if you don't mind a slightly more awkward style, violating parallelism, you can switch to present tense for the second clause (with future meaning, of course):

If you screw this up, your team will lose five points, and the other team gets three.

If you give me ten bucks, I'll wash your car, and Tom takes out the trash.

But I don't recommend it!

In any case, the version without will and still retaining the bare infinitive won't do at all.