By Conditionals

Re: Archaic Past Conditional?

Thank you all - brilliant. Good to know I was just overthinking the whole thing. Out of interest, would there be a linguistic term for such a substitution?

Re: the baby couldn't survive

I don't think the original is quite correct. Try, in past time: Were it not for the doctor's urgent operation, the baby couldn't have survived. or, even better, showing more clearly the sequence of actions: Had it not BEEN for the doctor's urgent operation, the baby...

the baby couldn't survive

Were it not for the doctor's urgent operation, the baby couldn't survive I borrowed this sentence from Angliholic. One thing that bothers me about this sentence is I would never use it in Conditional #2. Instead, Conditional #3 would be perfect. Had it not for the doctor's urgent...

Re: Pure pacheck?

Hi, I haven't seen this expression before. Here's my understanding of it. A pure paycheck deal is 'You do this work and I give you this amount of money'. A deal that is not pure paycheck sounds like the amount of money is conditional on the success of the movie. eg I'll...

Re: Archaic Past Conditional?

I agree with Jim a hundred percent. I am so used to reading English texts from various sources and periods that when I read the sentence, I found nothing unusual about it. I sometimes say myself: "I should think so." This isn't a backshift of any kind, of course, just a case of...

Re: Archaic Past Conditional?

It is a characteristic of British English, and of American English to a lesser extent, and especially in older forms of the language on both sides of the Atlantic, to substitute shall and should for will and would with a first-person subject.Hence, this substitution in mind, the sentence is...

Re: Conditional past-future

My vote here is to say it this way: "If I had known he wasn't coming to the lesson I could have gone home early," or "If I had known he wasn't coming to the lesson I would have gone home early." Linda

Re: Conditional past-future

golf tomorrow. The omission of and in the go and VERB pattern is only possible when literally "go" (not goes, went, going, or gone) precedes. (At least that's been my observation. Maybe you can find counterexamples.) The verb that follows has to be the same part of the verb as...

Re: conditionals

.Both of your 'kick' sentences are fine. The first is Conditional II and the second is Conditional I.Your third sentence is not conditional; it is reported speech.

conditionals

Hi, do both of these sound right? If you kicked me, I would kick you back.If you kick me, I will kick you back. I'm also confused by this sentence. I already told Mark that when he arrived, we would go out for dinner. What conditional is that?