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

Can we replace WOULD by WAS in such a sentence?

Anonymous — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:53:41 GMT

Hello, there,
In the following sentence:

Born in New York City on Oct. 27, 1858, Theodore Roosevelt is the second of four children of Theodore and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt. At age 6, T.R., his brother Elliott and friend Edith Carow (who would one day be his second wife) watch Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession from the home of T.R.'s grandfather on Manhattan's Union Square.

Can we change the modal verb WOULD into the simple past tense WAS? And what's the difference?
I think that WAS is also acceptable if we change a little bit of the context "who was his second wife", but I cannot explain the difference?
Coud you please help me out? Could you please explain the difference between these two verb systems in such a sentence?
Thank you in advance!

Re: hope and sorry

CalifJim — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:15:23 GMT

Anonymous
Can a past tense follow the word 'hope'?
I hope you had a great time at the beach last week.

Yes. That's a frequent combination.

Anonymous
Can a present tense be used after the word 'sorry' eventhough the event for it has not occurred yet?

In some cases this is possible, but not in general. You would typically have some sort of modal verb there.

I'm sorry you are leaving us so soon.

I'm sorry you have to have such a serious operation next month.

I'm sorry you can't attend the party tonight.

Re: "could" not referring past tense of "can"

Marius Hancu — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:32:00 GMT

That book is right. Modal verbs can be assigned to any time past, present or future.

See some of the previous threads on could/can:

http://www.englishforums.com/search/could%2bcan.htm

Re: Quick question! use of adapt/adapted

CalifJim — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:54:19 GMT

could evolve and could adapt

In that case, you definitely want adapt, not adapted. Modal verbs (and could is one of them) are not followed by past tense or past participle forms.

CJ

Re: It was thought (by many) to have been written by Michael.

Jackson6612 — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:17:01 GMT

It was thought (by many) to have been written by Michael.

In the above sentence:

''It'' is used as a subject.

''was'' is an auxiliary verb showing simple past tense and ''thought'' is a past participle serving the function of the main verb with reference to some past action.

''to have been'', as CB says, is a perfect infinitive and ''written'' is a past participle.

Is what I say above correct?

You should be going now.

In the above sentence:

''should'' is a modal verb.

''be'' is an auxiliary verb and ''going'' a main verb.

Is my description correct?

Would

Rotter — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 19:26:03 GMT

In the early Church, Christians would celebrate the anniversary of a martyr's death for Christ (known as the saint's "birth day") by serving an All-Night Vigil, and then celebrating the Eucharist over their tomb or place of martyrdom. In the fourth century, neighbouring dioceses began to transfer relics, and to celebrate the feast days of specific martyrs in common. Frequently, a number of Christians would suffer martyrdom on the same day, which naturally led to a joint commemoration. In the persecution of Diocletian the number of martyrs became so great that a separate day could not be assigned to each. But the Church, feeling that every martyr should be venerated, appointed a common day for all.

I have learnt to write the modal verb 'would' in the case of a hypothesis. Marius and a few others taught me this recently.
I don't know the reason to write the modal verb 'would' in the first sentence of the above.
I would write the following:
In the early Church, Christians celebrated the anniversary of a maty'r death for Christ ...
What is wrong with my way of writing in this context ? It was a past event so to write simple past tense is appropriate.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now look at the following:
Frequently, a number of Christians would suffer martyrdom on the same day, which naturally ...

What is the necessity of writing 'Christians would suffer' here?

I would write the following:

Frequently, a number of Christians suffered martyrdom on the same day, which naturally ...
Is the above incorrect in the given context?

[People of this country celebrate or rather pay a great attention to All Saint's Day.]

Re: "I thought..."

Loojka — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 20:46:58 GMT

CalifJim wrote:
After "mental" verbs in the past tense use the past tense or the past of a modal verb (e.g., would, might, could)

I [thought / believed / knew] (that)
you [were / would be / might be] late.

CJ

As I have said, I would also use the past tense here, but I wasn't sure about the possibility of using the present tense. And then I came across Mister Micawber's post in another thread:

Mister Micawber wrote:

I don't understand your question. These are right:

Did you know he likes me?
Did you know he is/has been/will be telling me something about you?
Did you know he told me something about you?

Can you use present or not?

Re: "I thought..."

CalifJim — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:52:18 GMT

After "mental" verbs in the past tense use the past tense or the past of a modal verb (e.g., would, might, could)

I [thought / believed / knew] (that)
you [were / would be / might be] late.

CJ

Re: might vs might have and Passive versions of both

CalifJim — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 02:22:47 GMT

What's the past of "could"

Aarrgghh! could is a past form already!

There are two series of forms to consider with modals. The interactions and combinations are the subject of entire books. So, in a way, a modal like may has "two pasts": might and may have. To make things even more complicated, most modals have at least two meanings: one to do with logic; the other to do with permissions or obligations.

Modals. (These are followed by a base form.)
Present forms: can, will, shall², may, must
Past forms (respectively): could, would, should³, might, [none for must]
The past forms shown above are frequently used with present meaning.
The reverse is not true, i.e., present forms are not used with past meaning.

Modal perfect structures⁴. (These are followed by a past participle.)
All have a function similar to a past tense of a non-modal verb.
Each acts somewhat like the past of its counterpart in the previous list.
can have¹, will have, shall have², may have, must have
could have, would have, should have, might have

And each of these has a negative counterpart. cannot, cannot have, will not (won't), will not have (won't have), etc.

Counting the negatives, there are 36 forms. It is probably safe to say that no general rule can be given which covers more than one or two of these patterns at a time. In other words the grammar and usage of each of the 36 forms is almost completely unique.

CJ

¹Essentially unused.
²Almost entirely unused in AmE.
³should is a past form always used with present meaning.
⁴These use only have literally. Never any other form like has or had.

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.