TeachingEnglish
Grammar question about would (i guess third conditional)
Submitted by delfy75 on 9 January, 2009 - 11:49
Hi everyone!
I've a doubt about the use of would, in a lot of articles and in general in books a see this expression es. "I would have + past participles" and as i studied this is the main clause of third conditional but without the if (the conditional clause)
So i'm wondering if the meaning is the same of third conditional eventhought i don't use "if + past perfect" or if is something else and the meaning change.
Thanks for any help or suggestion.
Best Regards
Tommaso.
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Sometimes the word "will" means" willingness" and should not be mistaken with future tense in conditional sentences:
I will help you if you will help me which means "If you are willing to help me I am also willing to help you."
Sometimes we can omit" if "in conditional sentences by inversion in if clause as:
Had you helped me, I would have helped you.
Using could/might/should is also possible instead of would in third conditional sentences, depending on the circumstances, even with monition of" IF" like:
Had you studied harder, you could have passed your exam.
However if we want to state that something will happen or had happened as a result of something else we usually use conditional sentences in explaining grammar but in literature , authors use language differently.
We have to consider other meanings of" If " like:
1-Despit being : he's nice, if rather selfish.
2-Every time that: If I call you are always engaged.
Best wishes
Ali asghar Mazinanian
thanks a lot for your explanation, now is more clear, so if i understand well in literature they could omiss at all the conditional part but the meaning could be the same ? For ex i've found in a book this sentence :
"None of the group would have told John we were moving tonight,” said Alfred. The idea was dreadful to him, he could not believe it of any of them."
Here, there is only "would have told John" if is missing and also they don't use the inversion, but i guess that the meaning is that the action in never happened beacuse is referred to an unreal situations in the past. Am i right ?
Best Regards
Tommaso.
I wonder if the problem is due to the word 'would'.
'Would' is a very special word in the English language, and although traditional grammars tended to teach it as part of conditional structures modern research based on corpora (such as the Collins COBUILD corpus) has revealed that it is in much wider use than just the conditional structures.
I'm not a grammarian, nor even particularly interested in grammar as a teacher, but to me the example "None of the group would've told John." is more alike to "He must've gone home." and "They couldn't have forgotten to pick up Tom, could they?" than it is to any of the conditional forms.
So perhaps, in this particular context the 'unrealness' of it is less important than the 'making an assumption' aspect.
Some uses of the word 'would' are:
(Thanks to http://ro.zrsss.si/~viljenka/modalverbs.htm for this. Although I imagine there are even more uses than these few.)
I wonder if the problem is due to the word 'would'.
'Would' is a very special word in the English language, and although traditional grammars tended to teach it as part of conditional structures modern research based on corpora (such as the Collins COBUILD corpus) has revealed that it is in much wider use than just the conditional structures.
I'm not a grammarian, nor even particularly interested in grammar as a teacher, but to me the example "None of the group would've told John." is more alike to "He must've gone home." and "They couldn't have forgotten to pick up Tom, could they?" than it is to any of the conditional forms.
So perhaps, in this particular context the 'unrealness' of it is less important than the 'making an assumption' aspect.
Some uses of the word 'would' are:
(Thanks to http://ro.zrsss.si/~viljenka/modalverbs.htm for this. Although I imagine there are even more uses than these.)
The question you asked, though, was specifically about the use of "I would have + pp". I think this is sometimes the same in meaning as it's conditional use (which is often used to express regrets) but it can also have different meanings. Let's look at these:
Son: Yeah, you're right. I guess I would've passed then.
(similar to "I would've passed if I'd studied harder")
(similar to "I would've got a coffee for you if I'd known what kind you liked." but the meaning seems to have a very different emphasis, more like apologising or explaining why you did something than expressing a regret)
B: Why, what happened?
A: I went home drunk last night.
B: Oh, I wouldn't have done that if I were you.
(this even has the 'if' clause, although in a different tense, but the meaning isn't the same; here it is a function for giving advice - or in this particular situation just making a reflective comment)
I'm not so sure now. Are the differences different enough? They seem to be conditional structures in which the if-clause has been omitted. Note, however, that the second two are not third conditional - they are mixed conditionals.
Yes i think you are right there are a lot of use about the word "would" not only in the conditional structure, just because i've found that sentence in a book i'd like to know more about the exact meaning.
Thanks a lot for your examples and explanations as a learner i'm just curious when i find something different i try to find out more.
Best Regards
Tommaso.
Dear Tomasso,
Thanks for your reply. Yes you are right but I think it is better to send the readers the whole page you are discussing so that everybody can give his /her idea on this matter. It's nice to see you are following the matter deeply.
Thanks and best wishes
Ali asghar Mazinanian
Dear Ali,
yes you are right is better to have the whole page just to understand better the meaning, unfortunately i can't post it because of copyright matter (i've found examples in a book which i'm reading at the moment), but i'll try to found some new examples from internet and post it as soon as possibie.
For the moment i'd like to thank you and all the others members of this forum for the precious informations.
Thanks all !:)
Tommaso.