In Verbs^x, Inflections^x, Past tenses^x

Would it be a correct grammar if I used "would have been" instead of "would" in the second sentence or I'm required to use "by now " instead of "now" in the second sentence : "If I had done it a year ago I would be rich now." "If I had...

If I had done it a year ago, I would be rich now. Or: If I had done it a year ago, I would have become rich by now. If I did it a year ago, I certainly remember nothing about it! Did is a simple past tense verb form in the above sentence, not a subjunctive. In languages that use more...

Main Entry: irregular verb Part of Speech: n Definition: any verb whose past tense and past participle are not formed by adding -ed, -d, or -t to the present tense, a verb that does not follow the general rules of inflection Examples...

New2grammar wrote: So you are saying the 'if' usage does not automatically make a sentence subjunctive? Can you give me a couple of examples in different contexts where 'if' is not subjunctive? Certainly, New2grammar: 1. I showed him some pictures yesterday. If he lik ed a picture, he would...

Mister Micawber wrote: The idiomatic ' try and do ' is not acceptably used in any but that fixed form. Any inflection of the verb ( tries and, tried and ) illegitimatizes it. I'll try and help you later. She's going to try and bake a cake. ( X ) She tries and bakes cakes. ( X ) I tried and...

FYI The second form is the one I see 99% of the time in professionally edited grammar books. Sometimes boldface type is reserved for a lexical item that takes various inflections, e.g., there may be a reference to be -- the italicized form then being used for the specific inflected forms,...

"If my child were caught shoplifting,

Hi Cacarr OED says about 'tense' as :any one of the different forms of a verb which indicate the different times at which the action or state denoted by it is viewed as happening or existing. It also says about 'inflection' as: the modification of the form of a word to express the different...

That's interesting, equivical. What is the nature of the inflection? Tense is a morphological thing: Smoke -Present Tense Smoked -Past Tense Will smoke = future time. See that the verb is without an affix of any kind? There is no future tense in English. We use a modal to refer to...

For my home grammar assignment I am to "describe the form of the verb phrases in the following sentences (:finiteness, tense, modality, aspect, voice): 1. The house had been painted a bright red before it was sold. 2. Pigeons will be nesting on the statue's head. 3. It is good to have seen...