Search results for 'tag:Modal verbs tag:Past perfect' matching tags 'Modal verbs' and 'Past perfect'

Re: Conditional Sentence

CalifJim — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:26:19 GMT

eagerness
the day after it actually happened

Then it's wouldn't.

Though some variation is possible in the right situation, the typical groups of tenses that go together in the same sentence are:

Present perfect - Present - Future of the Present (will) - Most modal verbs, including can, may, must, should

Past Perfect - Past - Future of the Past (would) - could, should, might

Re: Easy but long...)))

Yankee — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:20:51 GMT

Hi Pres1dent

You should break up long posts such as this one into several short posts. That way it's much easier for other people to comment.

I've made suggestions. Some of the sentences in these exercises don't sound terribly natural, so there are also suggestions in places where there were no asterisks (**).

I. Grammar Exercises
1 Articles
1. *(The)* equipment of from Blake & Co is very good. They sell it to ** various different companies
2. Where are *the* newspapers? They are on *the* desk.
3. There is ** ~~much~~ a lot of built-in furniture in our kitchen. *The* furniture makes *the* kitchen comfortable.
4. We are interested in buying ** the/ - machines from British companies.
5. *The* tools of Blake & Co tools are of ** high quality.
6. We~~âve~~ received *~~the~~ an* enquiry for ** three machines ~~lately~~ recently.
7. ** Last month our manager went to St. Petersburg by train. He ~~went there by~~ took *an * express train. *The* train had no stops.
8. If you want to get accommodation(s) at *a *hotel in Nice in the summertime you must reserve *the* room in advance. ** Nice hotels are full during the summer ~~time~~.
9. The seller didnât agree to give us *a* discount as their goods were in *a* great demand at that price.
10. We are interested in buying ** compressors for *a* new shop in *~~the~~* a large plant in Siberia. *The* shop is already under construction and the customers requires the goods urgently, as they must complete the construction of the shop by the end of the year.

2 Prepositions
1. She is sitting *on at* the table and ~~speaking~~ talking *on* the phone. She is making an appointment on for Friday.
2. They met Mr. Black *in* his office. The meeting began at 10 oâclock and lasted ** ~~(for?)~~ two hours.
3. *The* other day Rossexport received an enquiry for the motors of Johanson & Sons.
4. The train will arrive with a delay ~~for~~ of 40 minutes. Will you go to the departure lounge and wait for the announcement?
5. -Can you give us a discount *for/on* a large order?
- As we have done a lot of business with you, we can give you a small discount.
- In that case, weâd like to have a discount of 7%.
6. The charge for a room in this hotel is not very high.
7. They offered to deliver the pumps *in* ~~(of?)~~ four lots of 12 pumps each in at regular intervals of 5 months. (at regular 5-month intervals)
8. Youâve reserved a single and a double room ~~for you~~ for two nights on the fourth floor. These are modern rooms with private baths. They donât face the street.
9. -Iâd like a suit for office wear.
-Try *on/-* this one in for size. (OR: Try this one on for size.)
10. The seller offered the goods *at* CIF terms and payment collection. (This sounds clunky. I'd just say this: The seller offered the goods CIF.)

3 Degrees of comparison
1. The Sony TV set is more expensive than the Akai TV set. Itâs one of the most expensive TV sets.
2. Are our cars as convenient as German cars? (In my opinion, reliable would be a more logical choice of words.)
3. This is the busiest airport Iâve ever seen.
4. I come later on Mondays ~~later~~ than on other days.
5. ~~*More often*~~ we give a discount to buyers most often if we have known them for a long time.

4Verb times
1. Now you *see* Mr. Black in his office. During the day he *looks* through English newspapers and *discusses* business matters. Now he is reading a letter. Later, he *is going to phone* the manager of the company.
2. -What model are you interested in?
-Model BC5 *meets* our requirement.
3. The fact *is* I sent you our offer last week. In my letter I asked you to study it and give us your answer but we havenât received it yet.
4. -*Will* the plane to Moscow leaves on time? /Will the plane to Moscow be leaving on time?
-There is a delay but it probably *wonât be* over 30 minutes
5. Good morning, Mr. Black. Iâm glad to see you. I havenât seen you since we met in London
6. How long *~~it takes~~* (will it take?) me to get there?
-Itâll take you about half an hour to get there at this time of the day. There is a lot of traffic now. Look, bus 79A *is coming.*
7. Have you discussed the terms of delivery yet?
8. Jack arrived at the theatre about 7 oâclock. Ten minutes later he was sitting in the stalls and watching the performance.
9. Rossexport started shipping the goods nine months after we *(had) signed* the contract. (Past perfect is OK, but not necessary.)
10. I donât know when our accountant ~~comes~~ will be back

5Reported speech It's often difficult to judge reported speech without also knowing what the direct speech was.

1. Mr. Black said it hadnât taken us? long to discuss the price. (It sounds as though the sentence need 'them' rather than 'us'.)
2. The office manager said you would go ~~on business~~ to London on business soon.
3. Mr. Black asked if Mr. Taylor was staying with us.
4. Mr. Black wants to know what discount Mr. Smith can give us(?).
5. Mr. Black said your prices were very high and they couldnât accept them.
6. Mr. Black asked who Mr. Brown was waiting for.
7. Mr. Black wanted to know if Nancy had translated the letter.
8. Mr. Black says to look through the quotation from Dunn & Co.
9. Mr. Black said not to send the fax to Smith & Co.
10. Mr. Black asked if their goods met Mr. Smithâs requirements.

6Modal verbs
1. Can I offer you a cup of tea?
2. -~~Must~~ Do I have to go to the office every day?
-No, you ~~mustnât~~ don't.
3. -~~May~~ Can I invite businessmen to the conference room?
-No, you ~~mustnât (or mightnât?)~~ can't. It ~~must~~ has to be cleaned.
4. When can you look through it?
5. -Why are you so late?
-Because I had to phone the British company.
6. -Why did Mr. Smith go to London last month?
-He was/had to sign a contract there.
7. If the manager doesnât have to stay late at the head office today, he will be able to meet Mr. Smith
8. We received your offer 5 days ago ~~wand~~ but we ~~couldnât~~ haven't been able to study it (yet).
9. Who can make good coffee?
10. You are to contact Black & Co next Monday.

Re: past perfect vs past in if-clause in type 2 conditional

yulysess — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 16:05:12 GMT

Let's spread out the issue a little bit:

____ O ____

Type 2. Basic forms.

a. If we caught the 10 o'clock train, we would (could, might,

etc.) get there by lunch-time.

b. If I came into a fortune, I would give up smoking.

c. If I knew how it worked, I could tell you what to do.

In these sentences the conditional clauses represent what is a possible, b hypothetical/imaginary, or c contrary to the present fact. The verb form in the conditional clause represents the attitude of the speaker towards the condition; it does not represent time, which is indicated by other elements in the context or situation.

Sentence a is analogous to type 1 (If we catch..., we shall get...), but is more suppositional. The speaker either regards catching that train as improbable, or he wishes to put forward in a more tentative or "polite" way the suggestion of catching it. It does not necessarily follow that the condition is in fact unlikely to be fulfilled.

Sentence b, on the other hand, is much more hypothetical: it is a form of day-dreaming in which we all indulge at times.

Sentence c presents us with totally imaginary (or unreal) situation with reference to the time of speaking: it implies that I don't, in fact, know how it works, so I can't tell you what to do. Note that the past tense is used here to indicate present unreality.

The three sentences are formally identical: they all have the same sequence of tenses:

(if) past tense, (main) conditional.

However, contextually they are rather different. They represent three points on a scale of decreasing probability, from a suppositional or tentative but possible, to b hypothetical but not impossible, to c contrary to present fact, and hence unreal.

Note that the conditional tense is not used in the conditional clause.

As we saw in example "c", the idea of something contrary to present fact is conveyed by the use of the past tense in the conditional clause. We also use the past tense to refer to present unreality after the verb "wish" (if only, also expresses the wish of the speaker), and after expressions like "I'd rather" and "It is time":

a. I wish (that) I were rich! (If only I were rich!)

b. I'd rather you told me frankly what you think.

c. It's time (It's about time, It's high time) we left.

We never use the present tense or a future form after wish. We use either the past tense as illustrated above, or we can use would (not will) to indicate that people or events frustrate our desires.

Type 2. Variations.

a. If we were to miss the 10 o'clock train, we wouldn't get there till after lunch.

The use of were to in the conditional clause sometimes has the effect of emphasizing the suppositional nature of the condition and, is in some ways analogous to the use of should in conditional clauses in TYPE 1: we can often substitute "by any chance" without changing the meaning: If by any chance we missed the 10 o'clock train, we wouldn't get there till after lunch.

Were to is used for all persons, and this variation may be applied to any conditional clause of this second type.

b. If you would reserve seats, we would be sure of a comfortable journey.

In this sentence. would is not a part of a conditional tense; it is a modal verb, and represents a more tentative (or polite) form of WILL as used in conditional clauses of type 1. It introduces the idea of your agreeing, or being willing, to do what is suggested. We cannot use this construction in the following sentence:

If he got my letters in time, he would be able to change his plans.

We cannot say

*If he would get my letter in time, since "he" can hardly exercise any willingness or unwillingness to get it.

You must, therefore, be careful to use "would" in this way only where the context will support the idea of co-operation, agreement, or willingness on the part of the subject.

Type 2. Summary of forms.

1. (If) past tense, (main) conditional.

If we caught the early train, we'd get there by lunch time.

2. (If) were to + infinitive, (main) conditional.

If we were to miss the early train, we wouldn't get there till after lunch.

3. (If) would + infinitive, (main) conditional.

If you'd cook the dinner, I'd do the washing up afterwards.

Type 3. Basic forms and variations.

a. If we had caught the 10 o'clock train, we would (could, might, etc.) have got there by lunch-time.

This sentence is completely hypothetical, and represents what is contrary to past fact. In this case, the past perfect tense is used to indicate past unreality -we didn't catch the 10 o'clock train, so we didn't get there by lunch time.

This is analogous to the use of the past tense to indicate present unreality in type 2c, and tense usage after the verb WISH follows the same pattern: we use the past perfect to refer to something wished-for in the past:

I wish you had told me before (but you didn't)

Variations on a sentence "a" are not very common, though sentences like the following are occasionally met with:

b. If you were to have asked me, I would have been only too willing to help.

Bibliography

R. A. Close (1975). A Reference Grammar for Students of English. Longman.

B.D. Graver (1979). Advanced English Practice. OUP

S.M. Parkinson (1983). A University English Grammar for Spanish-Speakers. Ed. EmpeÃ±o

R. Quirk et al. (1979). A Grammar of Contemporary English. Longman

W. Stannard Allen (1977). Living English Structure. Longman

M. Swan (1986). Practical English Usage. OUP

A.J. Thomson & A.V. Martinet (1982). A Practical English Grammar. OUP

______ O _______

Enjoy

Also look at the link Marius gave.

Questions on a sentence

Believer — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 13:44:39 GMT

Hi,

Can you confirm my surmises for the sentence below?

The mistake which the leaders and John made 1) could have been prevented, if they 2) had been cautious and asked for help.

1) Is the main function of modal verbs like 'could' to express advisibility and the modal verbs do not affect the time references of tenses?

2) Is 'had been' in the past perfect tense mode?

Re: TOEIC Error Recognition

Lcchang — Tue, 08 May 2007 09:13:27 GMT

CalifJim wrote:
The sentence is complicated by the fact that you can make the past of can by using could, but you have to make the past of must by using must have. And must have been is not a past perfect tense, by the way. It's one of the modal perfect tenses, most of which have special uses.

Let's simplify the sentence for purposes of illustration.

Her mother must be remarkable if she can do so many things.
= If her mother can do so many things, she must be remarkable.
= It must be true that her mother is remarkable, because she [can / is able to] do so many things.
= It has to be true that her mother is remarkable, because she [can / is able to] do so many things.

In the past, has to becomes had to, but must becomes must have. can becomes could.

It had to be true that her mother was remarkable, because she [could / was able to] do so many things.
= It must have been true that her mother was remarkable, because she [could / was able to] do so many things.
= If her mother could do so many things, she must have been remarkable.
= Her mother must have been remarkable if she could do so many things.

The use of must have does not require matching have's for the rest of the verbs because must is a special case of a modal verb with a meaning that has to do with logical deduction. The same happens with may and may have. She may have been a good cook if what they said was correct. = It is possible that she was a good cook if what they said was correct. Not: *She may have been a good cook if what they have said has been correct.

I realize that it's a bit complicated, but maybe it will help.

CJ

Hi CJ,

I didn't know that may have been is the past tense for may since grammar books never tell me that. Thanks for the information. But, one more thing I would like to ask you:

She may have been a good cook if what they said was correct.

Is it OK to use use "were" instead of "was" for a conditional sentence? Please advise.

LCChang

Re: TOEIC Error Recognition

CalifJim — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:40:01 GMT

The sentence is complicated by the fact that you can make the past of can by using could, but you have to make the past of must by using must have. And must have been is not a past perfect tense, by the way. It's one of the modal perfect tenses, most of which have special uses.

Let's simplify the sentence for purposes of illustration.

Her mother must be remarkable if she can do so many things.
= If her mother can do so many things, she must be remarkable.
= It must be true that her mother is remarkable, because she [can / is able to] do so many things.
= It has to be true that her mother is remarkable, because she [can / is able to] do so many things.

In the past, has to becomes had to, but must becomes must have. can becomes could.

It had to be true that her mother was remarkable, because she [could / was able to] do so many things.
= It must have been true that her mother was remarkable, because she [could / was able to] do so many things.
= If her mother could do so many things, she must have been remarkable.
= Her mother must have been remarkable if she could do so many things.

The use of must have does not require matching have's for the rest of the verbs because must is a special case of a modal verb with a meaning that has to do with logical deduction. The same happens with may and may have. She may have been a good cook if what they said was correct. = It is possible that she was a good cook if what they said was correct. Not: *She may have been a good cook if what they have said has been correct.

I realize that it's a bit complicated, but maybe it will help.

CJ

Re: Plesae explain this.

Sabyakgp — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 21:28:58 GMT

Thanks a lot again for all your help. "Would" seems to be the most confusing modal verb in English grammer and trying hard to learn the correct usages of this mysterious word .

As Nona said. they might have used "Would have had to" to express the uncertainty, in that case, Can we use "had had to" to express certainty ,I said "had had to" because here everything happened before he died (past event) so we may not use "Had to" here which past simple. Is it correct ?

My grandfather died at the age of 64, he had had severe nerual problems and had had to take a lot of medicine before he died (here speaker knows what exactly had happened to his grandfather before he died).

My grandfather died at the age of 64, he had had severe nerual problems and would have had to take a lot of medicine before he died (Here speaker is sure that his grandfather had nerual problems but not sure whether he had taken a lot of medicine for that or not , may be he was not born that time, he heard from his father).

I just phrased these above sentences to show my understanding, could you plesae tell me whether its correct.

As Mr. Patrick said, in that face transplant report, "Would" is used in present context (correct me if i am wrong) and expressed imagination of the speaker. Past of "Would" in this context is "Would be" and present perfect would be "Would have" and past perfect would be "Would have had". Is my understanding correct ?

Mr. Patrick has also said that "Had to" and "Would have had to" sound roughly same, i think "had to" is past simple which could replaced with "Would have to", Can you plesae tell me the difference between "had to" , "Would have to" and "Would have had to" ? I apologize for Troubling you a lot, i am just trying to learn correct English.

Regards.

Sabya

Re: How can you tell whether someone is a non-native speaker?

MrPedantic — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 23:09:12 GMT

Julielai wrote:

Just out of curiosity, Mr. P, how do you distinguish a native speaker who's learned a non-standard form of English from a decent non-native speaker? (e.g. How can you tell if a speaker born in India, Singapore or other Asian countries is native?)

Hello Julie

I'm not sure I always could â sometimes I'm not sure whether a poster is speaking erratic non-native English, or a US dialect, for instance (especially if the erraticism resides in the modal verbs!).

But on the whole, non-standard natives make different mistakes from non-native standards. NSNs may be unusual in grammar, but they're usually strong in idiom. And a very good NNS will often hyper-correct (in the use of the subjunctive, for instance, or the past perfect).

(I'm speaking very theoretically here, though â merely spouting impressions!)

MrP

Help with an Application Task for a CELTA course

K@t — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 17:00:05 GMT

Hello all,

I am applying to take a CELTA course and they gave me an application task to do before I can enter the program. I am having some difficulty with some parts and was wondering if some one would be willing to help me. I use msn messanger under hpainter24@hotmail.com feel free to add me and then we can go over the questions. I'm going to try posting some of the questions here.

1. Which is the âodd one outâ in each group, and why?

e.g.	a.	I had my hair cut last night.
	b.	I had seen the film before.
	c.	I had my car repaired at the garage.

Sentence b, because sentences a and c refer to actions that someone else did for the speaker. They are in the past tense. Sentence b refers to an action which the speaker did himself/herself and is in the past perfect tense.

A:	i.	The babyâs bottle.
	ii.	The nationâs struggle.
	iii.	The teacherâs ill.
	iv.	The nurseâs pay.
	v.	The governmentâs defeat.

Sentence ____

B:	i.	The woman was robbed by a stranger.
	ii.	The actor was interviewed by a journalist.
	iii.	The tree was hit by lightning.
	iv.	The trains passed by a river.

Sentence ____

C:	i.	She must have lost the address.
	ii.	Alan must have been here too.
	iii.	That must have been awful.
	iv.	The thieves must have gone in through the window.
	v.	I must have something to drink.

Sentence ____

D:	i.	Iâm not used to the noise yet.
	ii.	They used to work in a circus.
	iii.	Didnât there use to be a shop there?
	iv.	I never used to smoke.
	v.	It didnât use to be so dirty.

Sentence ___

2. Can you think of any exceptions to the following ârulesâ?

	âRuleâ	Exception
e.g.	âwillâ is used to express predictions without evidence.	âThatâll be John at the door.â This isnât a prediction without evidence. The statement is based on the fact that John always arrives at this time/he is expected.
A:	âtheâ is not used with the names of people.
B:	The past simple form of the verb is used to describe finished events or states.
C:	âsomeâ is used in statements; âanyâ in negatives and questions.
D:	âcanâ (modal verb) is used to express ability.

3. Identify any incorrect sentences in this list, supply the corrected version and explain the error.

	Sentence	Correction	Explanation
e.g.	What did you say was your name?	What did you say your name was?	The problem is one of word order. One question is embedded in another and the mistake is in giving them both the word order of a question. The second part âyour name wasâ isnât actually a direct question.
A:	Iâve been to China last year.
B:	He doesnât work as hard as she does.
C:	I would of liked to have seen that.
D:	If youâll wash up, Iâll do the ironing.
E:	I regret to have damaged your book.
F:	How long are you knowing Nathan?

Re: Reported Speech (Modal verbs and Passive voice)

just the truth — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 01:39:34 GMT

True?

"Yesterday President Bush said that America was dominated by British soldiers."

Huurm.. English is a quite queer language.

Hi Paco,

Again, if you want to believe that the sequence of tenses "rule" describes how language actually works, then you're going to be severely disappointed. Of course, your offering using a backshift to a past perfect is okay and it is often used in newspapers and other writing situations. That doesn't mean it must be used.