[Corpora-List] if + would

[Rob Freeman]

Hi Parveen,

On Thursday 23 March 2006 06:47, Parveen Lallmamode wrote:
>
> I find it difficult to digest this construction even though I am not a
> prescriptivist. In Br Eng, we find the following construction for
> conditionals:
>
> If + past tense, ... would (verb). [if he came, we would go  ....]
> If + past perfect, ... would have (+ past participle).[if he had come, we
> would have gone ]
>
> While in Am Eng, I was told that the conditionals can take the following
> forms:
>
> If + would (verb), ... would (verb). [if he would come, we would go  ...]
> If + would have (+ past participle), ...  + would have (+ past participle).
> [if he would have come, we would have gone ....]

You probably know this already, but what we are talking about here is not 
really a conditional but a case of the rapidly retreating English subjunctive 
(c.f. "If I *were* you...", "it is important that he *be* on time" etc.) i.e. 
not strictly a conditional, but a "contrafactual".

In moving from "had" to "would" in American English, according to the theory I 
read, English was just following the pattern of Frankish Latin, which 
historically replaced the subjunctive with the conditional in certain cases 
(e.g. "C'est possible que je *serais* bonne, si je *saurais* pourquoi", a 
"would .. would" usage?)

As I recall, in the account I read, this was done in Frankish Latin under the 
influence of the invading Germanic dialect. I don't think the same can be 
true of Am. Eng., though :-) (and even the historical French case mystifies 
me) because as far as I know modern German still uses the subjunctive (c.f. 
"had"/"hätte") to express this meaning.

-Rob