By Nouns, Conditionals

This is related to a thread in the General Grammar section ( Post:78137 ). I find 'as if' a curious phrase. Sometimes it seems to act like 'as if', I mean that 'would' and 'would have' are used as required to complete a standard conditional sentence with the 'if' clause.

We've done this before, Hela-- none of your sentences is subjunctive: I. There are two forms of the subjunctive, called present and past. -- The present subjunctive in all persons is 'be' for the verb 'to be', and the base form for all other verbs. Thus: ---- They demand (that) I be...

I've tried to find my way through the maze of our past conversation here, Hela, and I see that I have made at least one obvious mistake, and that you were correct in part of your original assumption. I have reviewed my understanding of the Subjunctive Mood, and this sentence-- 'If I caught you,...

Calif Jim I used past tense in the 'posing' example because I was imagining a press article describing the event. When we say "Manchester United are (or is) posing for photos", we are doing so in the belief that the listener or reader will infer we mean the players - or at least those players...

Hi Happy, This area is a very contentious one, so it is not surprising that you find different pronouncements within and between grammar books. Here is my opinion on the examples you present: (1) 'Who did it ?' Not I.' The pronoun stands in parallel to the subject 'who', and is a shortened...

Guest, Mister Micawber, Mask, Whenever I see a question of the form seen here - essentially a multiple choice question - I usually judge it to be a "test question" which was encountered in an English course, usually with one right answer. I am not always correct in this :( , but usually. In...

Here come the adverbial clauses! I hope it's not too late To put it simple, we can say that adverbial clauses do the work of adverbs and can function as adjuncts or disjuncts. Asjuncts are integrated within the structure of the sentence to at least some extent (Halliday calls these...

"Arriving at the circus early, seats could be selected near the center ring". "Arriving at the circus early" is an adverbial phrase, and one which describes a noun, so strictly speaking it must go next to the noun it describes. The noun in question is "I", or perhaps "we" or "one" or "you" - a...

WILL is normally use for future. You can say; I will not (won't) be here tomorrow. DO is for plural noun. You can say; They don't go to movie. and also you can use DO with I. I don't go to movie. I go to school.

The city is polluted. ( simple present tense in passive form ) I tried to shout ( simple past tense, incomplete sentence ) I tried shouting ( simple past, " shouting " is a gerund ) He claimed that he was the Queen's nephew. ( simple past, " that he was the Queen's nephew " is a noun clause...