Search results for 'tag:Mixed conditionals tag:Past tenses' matching tags 'Mixed conditionals' and 'Past tenses'

Re: Follow-up to "Nagging conditional problem"

Marius Hancu — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:48:15 GMT

>I thihk the modal 'could' and possibly 'would' have some differing uses.

could: about ability, would: about willingness

Anonymous
Thank you.

Would you say these are examples of any of traditional (?) first, or second, or third conditional or any of the acceptable variants thereof? I have been rubbing my eyes for any clues as to their relevance or relationship to the traditional (?) first, or second, or third conditional but they seem to be fleeting from me at best.

If you happen to have money (with/on you), could/would you lend me some?

Should you have money (with/on you), could/would you lend me some?

The first is a mixed conditional, similar to what you can find on this page:

http://www.englishpage.com/conditional/mixedconditional.html

This is one of the best sites, learn whatever you find there. Forget about strict classifications (1st, 2nd), I don't remember them.

The 2nd is a replacement using should.

If you want one of the "classical patterns," you could use:

If you happenED to have money (with/on you), could/would you lend me some?

which is also NOT about the past, but about present/future and is a 2nd conditional as in:

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-conditional_3.htm

and would be more doubtful, more formal and more polite (use of the past tense for a present time condition, which is called distancing) than

If you happen to have

but I wanted to correct/use the original pattern of tenses, which are to be found in the original thread.

Re: I thought it would be nice

CalifJim — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:09:33 GMT

A) Are there any verbs that are usually not backshifted, and the whole sentence is rearranged instead? I think you mentioned "should". For example, if someone says "I should see a doctor", the reported version would be "He said he had to see a doctor" or "He said he'd better see a doctor" or "He was thinking of going to the doctor"???
As I mentioned in the previous post, I got freaked out by changing "I should be studying" to "I think you should have been studying", and it through off my reasoning completely. Actually, as I also mentioned in the previous post, you can backshift should -- but to itself -- not to should have, unless time has passed and there is now regret for not having done what one should have done -- but then that would be reporting a different thought.. You just can't change the thought! It's "I should be studying" >> (I thought) you said you should be studying. (I thought you would be studying because you said you should be studying.) And you can change the verbs if you want. That's still an option, and one that's frequently used.

B) Some structures are weird, because I can't rephrase them like I'm telling a story, as above. One of those structures is "would like", as in "I'd like an ice cream", or "She'd like another coke". What's the backshifted version of those? Maybe I need to change them, and say "She told me she wanted another coke"...

Same as for plain would.
I would like some cake. >> I said I would like some cake.
She'd like another coke. >> She said she'd like another coke.

Compare:
I would have liked some cake. (I didn't get any) >> I said I would have liked some cake.
She would've liked another coke. (She didn't get another.) >> She said she would've liked another coke.
[These are 'counterfactuals' expressing mild regret.]

C) In the above examples, #6 and #7 have "might", and "might" is backshift to itself, "might". I was wondering if the same happened with "could". If you replace "might" with "could" in #6 and #7, would that be ok too? Yes, I mentioned that in the previous post before I even realized you had asked about it.. I know "could" can be the backshifted version of "can", but I'm actually worried about "could" when possibility is involved. Like in this one, to make it clearer:
- If it's nice, I could go for a walk tomorrow morning. ---> I met Kate. She (could?)¹ go for a walk the following day. She could have gone for a walk...² (<-- Careful! This is a thought of mine, not related to what she actually said!) She said she (could?) go for a walk the following day.³

¹Here again you have that problem of a past-form modal usually used with present-time meaning trying to pose as a carrier of past-time meaning in a main clause. And here again, you really have to bury it in a subordinate clause governed by a past-tense main clause to get that across. I'd go with "She said she could go for a walk the following day" or "She was available to go for a walk ... " or "She had time to go for a walk ...".

²I understand the meaning, but I'm stumped as to why it doesn't sound exactly right. My brain keeps jumping back to a counterfactual interpretation. It's like one of those cubes where you can see it two ways, and your brain keeps flipping back and forth between the two. It would probably work in a complex real-life situation, though. Somebody might just spontaneously generate it, and it would be clear to me from context which of the interpretations was meant.

³could sounds perfect in this one. It's just a matter of could backshifting to itself -- and the past tense in the main clause makes everything come out all right.
_______
General remarks in the form of an aside about conditionals with can / could.

The backshifts are as discussed earlier.
I could go for a walk. >> I said I could go for a walk.
She could have gone for a walk. >> She said that she could have gone for a walk.

But in conditionals, strictly, can is to will as could is to would.
If it is nice, I [can/will] go for a walk
If it [were/was] nice, I [could/would] go for a walk.
If it had been nice, I [could/would] have gone for a walk.

So you have what's called a 'mixed conditional' to start with. (Are you trying to give me a headache? )
But here, context tells us that a past form is being used with present meaning, in effect
If it's nice, you have the choice of going for a walk.
________

I'm not sure what more you need or what more I can say about these, but feel free to make up more examples, and we'll go through them together and see what we can see. (But bring aspirin next time!)

CJ

Re: Would - conditional or past tense?

Kooyeen — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:59:45 GMT

Hi Jack,
my try:
I would not put myself in a position where I jeopardized the people working for me, or those for whom I worked, for the sake of vanity.
I don't know the exact terms to refer to those words. Let's say those two "past tenses" are kind of like two "subjunctives" or "unreality past tenses". It's like everything is part of an hypothetical statement, like "If I worked there and jeopardized the people...". But that's not really part of an "If... would" sentence, since there are no if's, but rather it is more of a tense simplification in conditional sentences. The simplification consists in using a past tense in conditional senteces, without repeating "would", and it's done even if the situation is real and not hypothetical. Here's an example I just invented:

Well, if some girl tried to flirt with Michael, I would simply tell her he was my boyfriend and to leave him alone. But I wouldn't punch her in the face, come on! I'm not that violent!

First, I'm not sure that's a good example, and second I don't kow if "is" is also possible instead of "was". Maybe it's used in speech the same way mixed conditionals are used, I don't know.
Wait for some other advice

Re: Another "If clause"

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 01:33:33 GMT

Tlzone08 wrote:
I thought you can use "If I have money, I will help you."   OK

and "If I have money, I would help you." No, that's not OK

Here, HAVE is the present tense, and WOULD is the past tense. In the sentence above, 'would help' is conditional (i.e. 'would' is not the past tense)

Someone said using WOULD makes it less polite.   In the sentence above, using 'would' simply sounds like incorrect grammar.

Then why can't I say, "If he has money, he would buy a car."? Why do you want to say this?
You can say:
"If he has money, he will buy a car."
-OR-
"If he had money, he would buy a car."

If you want to create a "mixed conditional" you need to have a good reason for doing so (i.e. you would have to provide more context to justify mixing two different conditional sentence types).

Re: A couple of questions about the subjunctive and hypotheticals

Jussive — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 17:14:50 GMT

Thanks for your reply, MrP.

1. I would call it an exclamatory conditional. The main clause is left unspoken, but we can usually infer it, e.g. "if only she would contact me, I would be very happy".

Ok, itâs a conditional with an unexpressed result but still a âconditionalâ right? In this case, would you refer to it as the âsecond conditionalâ? As I understand it, there are only five conditionals (three strictly speaking plus zero and mixed conditionals).

You see, to me, the sentence 'if only she would contact me, I would be very happy' is incorrect, because âif onlyâ could be expressed as verb as in âI wishâ and, therefore, is not behaving as a subordinator and so you have two clauses without a conjunction. In other words, I would have thought that âif only she would contact meâ in terms of meaning is a complete sentence in much the same way as âI wish she would contact meâ and therefore requires an additional conjuction for the result, âif only she would contact me as then I would be very happyâ

What do you think?

2. The non-past use of the past tense we find in "I wish you lived nearer" does suggest a subjunctive mood: cf. "I wish she were here". Presumably the verb in such cases was marked for the subjunctive, in an earlier form of English (cf. the German past subjunctive, where e.g. an umlaut serves as a marker).

Ok, so you would refer to the non-past use as the subjunctive - correct?

3. We may sometimes be able to distinguish between subjunctive and non-subjunctive "would" and "could"; for instance in an IF clause:

3a. If he could help me, he would.

Here, the "could" seems to have a subjunctive sense: "if he were able to". Similarly, it seems to me, "would" can be called subjunctive, if we can put "were willing to" instead.

So in that respect, "would" and "could" can act like any other past tense form, and serve in a subjunctive context. But I wouldn't call them inherently subjunctive: we can't were-ify the "he would" in 3a, for instance.

Here, youâve confused me a bit, CF. In your example sentence, I don't understand what replacing 'would' with some expression tells you. This doesn't mean that replacing 'could' with 'if he were able to' doesn't tell you something, as it is part of the condtional clause which 'would' is based on.

Tbh, I feel that I don't understand you at this point, so please let me give you my take on it and maybe you will see where and why I've lost you:

The way I see it is, in such a construction, âcouldâ indicates the hypothetical nature of the whole sentence. âWouldâ (although can be used in a number of ways in other constructions) in the second conditional is clearly used as a marker and is based on the hypothetical condition laid out. 'Would' itself doesn't have to be hypothetical as in 'if he would'. It is just the result of a condition and what's important is that it changes form according to whether that condition is hypothetical or not. I donât see why we have to be able to replace it with any âexpressionâ (âwere-ifyâ - I'm not sure what that means, incidentally) to recognise this. Surely, itâs as simple as this:

If he can help you he will (real possiblity)

If he could help you he would (hypothetical)

Basically, weâve got a subjunctive marker for each clause in each sentence. There is only one difference between these two sentences and that is the hypothetical element which is what the subjunctive is all about, right?

To illustrate âwouldâ as being a subjunctive marker we can also use it in a similar way to the non-past:

'I wish she helped more.'

'I wish she would help more.'

Here we don't have to deal with conditions.

Ive read that modals such as âwouldâ and âcouldâ give a âsubjunctive ideaâ and other non-committal descriptions as such, but I donât understand the rationale behind those reservations. They seem also to apply to the non-past. It seems people donât wish to call these forms the subjunctive for some strange reason and I donât know what that reason is. Whatâs so special about âwereâ and the removal of âsâ in the third person singular, as markers of the past and present subjunctive, respectively? We have other markers of the hypothetical/non-fact, as shown in this thread, so why the reservations in calling them the subjunctive also?

Thanks for your response MrP.

Jussive

Re: IF...

katsudon — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 06:53:44 GMT

I am confused by the difference of these sentences.

A:If you finish the homework, you could go out with me.
B:If you finished the homework, you could go out with me.

Are they correct in grammar?
If so, would you please tell me the difference?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yes Yoko, they are both grammatically correct. Contextually, there is no difference. By that I mean that a child would realize that either one means,

"Finish your homework and you can go out with me".

We choose [some] historical past tense modals to make the situation sound more tentative, [some] historical present tense modals to make a situation sound more real.

'IF' sentences, the First, Second & Third Conditionals, aren't separated by a gulf, ie. they don't operate in isolation. They operate on a spectrum and in some situations we can choose to use either a "past tense FORM" {expressing greater doubt/more tentativeness/etc} or a "present tense FORM" {expressing a less tenative meaning/less doubt/etc}.

We know that these conditionals don't operate is isolation because we often get mixed conditionals like your sentence A.

Re: Mixed Conditional

MrPedantic — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 06:56:39 GMT

If I'm correct, you would have had such hybrids banned from the very beginning, Mr. P.!

Is this a mixed conditional, though? I'm not sure the action in the main clause is directly dependent on the IF clause. I'd call it an ellipsis of some kind:

1. If I'm correct, if you had had your way, you would have had...

If I left my notes on the bus, then I won't be able to tell you master moderators of the universe about all the various mixed conditionals that can crop up...

I would take this as an inferential IF statement, rather than a conditional IF. 'If I left my notes' relates to a real situation; whereas in this version

2. If I left my notes on the bus, I wouldn't be able...

it relates to an imaginary situation. So I would take woodcutter's 'left' as a simple indicative past tense, and the 'left' in #2 as a 'past tense used to denote remoteness/imaginariness'.

Cf. the version with a present perfect:

3. If I have left my notes on the bus, I won't be able...

MrP

Re: Wouldn't / Where

MrPedantic — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 19:51:53 GMT

I'd choose #1 as well:

1. Jack wouldn't drive fast on a road where he didn't know how long it was.

This is in effect a type 2 conditional. It means that Jack (in our opinion) is unlikely to drive fast on a road if he doesn't know how long it is. Using 'would' + past tense makes the sentence more 'remote' â which makes sense, because we clearly consider it a 'remote' possibility.

The other versions are unhappy mixtures of tenses, but are likely to occur in conversation or internet English, where we often find mixed conditionals.

MrP

Re: Phineas Redux (tenses)

MrPedantic — Mon, 16 May 2005 22:59:21 GMT

Hmm. I think I would say:

c) He was sitting in silence, drinking in her words.

'He sat silent' seems ok; but 'he was sitting silent' doesn't seem right. The combination of progressive tense + adjective strikes me as odd.

Back to Q3:

"If any friend ever felt an interest almost selfish for a friendâs welfare, she will feel such an interest for you.â

Yes, I would take the past tense as indicative. It's a literal past, rather than the past-expressing-remoteness that we find in a type 2 conditional.

To simplify:

1. If anyone ever felt X, she will feel X for you => If it is the case that Feeling X exists, she will experience Feeling X.

So I wouldn't call it a mixed conditional; I'd say it belongs to the same class of IF statement as these:

2. If it was dark, you couldn't possibly have seen the face of the man in question.
3. If Laura has arrived, she'll be with Mr Finn in the conservatory.
4. If Mr Finn was fond of Laura, he had a very strange way of showing it.

With this kind of IF statement, the purpose of the main clause is to express an inference drawn from the IF clause.

So I would say that 'would' wouldn't work here!

MrP

Re: Phineas Redux (tenses)

MrPedantic — Sun, 15 May 2005 23:28:15 GMT

Hello Hela

1âAltogether, 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?
â 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 ?)
â 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 â 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.â ]
â 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."
â '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?
â I think possible contexts could be found, whether or not we linked the sentences.

2) In âNo one, no other human being in the world, will be so interested for you as she is.â [original text]

a) If we consider the auxiliary used at the end of the sentence âisâ, the normal guess would be IS in the first clause. Right ?
â 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 âISâ, should it ?
â 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 âWOULD FEELâ in âIf any friend ever felt an interest almost selfish for a friendâs welfare, she WOULD FEEL such an interest for you.â [original = âwill feelâ = mixed conditional = 2 + 1]
â 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) âWOULD FEELâ would mean that at that moment of speaking the speaker was not sure if Mrs Kennedy was interested in Mr Finnâs future in politics. Right ?

b) but with âWILL FEELâ the speaker is sure of Mrs Kennedyâs feeling and interest for Mr Finn. Right ? (Iâd like to understand the subtlety between both tenses)
â Will ponder and report back tomorrow on these two questions...

4) What about the âWILLâ form in the following sentence, can it be accepted ? i.e.
âIf you were to succeed it WILL GIVE her a hope in life.â [the text gives âwould giveâ = 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 Kennedyâs reaction.
â 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 doesnât think that Mr Finn will succeed, he knows therefore that Mrs Kennedy is never going to have such a hope.
â 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 = âThey 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.â

b) so what is the logic when we write :
âThey hadn't seen each other for..., and when they PARTED, though they had lived, there WERE no signs of still living friendship.â
â You could think of it in this sense â 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 bÃªte (#3) tomorrow!

Bye for now,
MrP