Answer: The Use of "Would" In Conditionals and the Habitual Tense
earth2skye asks: How is the verb “would” used in conditionals and habitual tenses in the context of a narrative in the past tense?
With examples from Tin Man, and titles from Laura Joffe Numeroff, The Barenaked Ladies, Budd Schulberg and Gene Raskin.
The word “would” is a grab-bag of grammatical functions, especially when it comes to tense. First and foremost, it’s the past tense of the word “will”, which, in turn is the verb tacked on to other verbs to form the future tense.
You read that right. “Would” is the past tense of the future tense. And that’s its simplest function.
Sorry you clicked, yet?
Don’t worry. This entry covers only conditionals and certain flavours of the past progressive tense.
So what is a conditional, anyway?
Conditionals are sentences that describe hypothetical scenarios. They come in many flavours, but I’ll be discussing only the three main ones you’re likely to come across in narrative prose-first, second and third.
All conditionals are built from one independent clause and one subordinate clause that starts with “if” or “when”. The if-clause defines a condition, and the main clause describes an outcome that can happen only if the condition is fulfilled. For example:
subordinate clause: If DG had not insisted on exploring the caves at Finaqua,
main clause: the O.Z. would never have fallen into turmoil.
Now that that’s sorted, let’s get to the specifics!
The First Conditional: If you give a mouse a cookie...
First conditionals describe the outcomes of conditional scenarios that are likely to occur in the future. They’re constructed as follows:
If + present verb, (then) + future verb
For example:
“Glitch!” cried DG. “If Cain finds out what you’ve done to his hat, he’ll throw a fit!”
To fit the same statement into a past tense narrative, convert the main verb of each clause to the past tense that corresponds to its tense. That is, the present tense verb in the if-clause becomes past, and the future tense verb in the result clause becomes future in past. The new template becomes:
If + simple past verb, (then) + future in past (would) verb
Like so:
DG gawped at the charred fedora. If Cain found out what Glitch had done to his hat, he would throw a fit!
The Second Conditional: "If I had a million dollars...”
The second conditional is the conditional of wishful thinking: it’s used to describe the hypothetical outcome of conditions that are untrue in the present or unlikely in the future, but not impossible. Even though they refer to events occurring (or rather, not occurring) at the time of the narrative, second conditionals are constructed only in the past tense. They don't change their tense when they appear in past tense narratives, because if they did, they would be structurally indistinguishable from third conditionals (hold that thought), leading to confusion of their meaning. The construction is as follows:
If + simple past verb, (then) + future in past (would) verb
Like so:
Present: Though the Witch is secretive about her search, Azkadellia knows that she has not found the Emerald yet. If she had it, she would gloat.
Past: Though the Witch was secretive about her search, Azkadellia knew that she had not found the Emerald yet. If she had it, she would gloat.
Hmm. That construction looks familiar, no? The format looks like the first conditional construed in past tense, right?
Almost.
Consider these second conditional sentences:
”If I was your husband, I would be very afraid for your well-being right now,” sneered Zero.
“If you were my husband,” said Adora coldly, “they wouldn’t call you ‘Zero’.”
Ruh-roh! That’s not right! Let’s try that again:
“If I were your husband, I would be very afraid for your well-being right now,” sneered Zero.
“If you were my husband,” said Adora coldly, “they wouldn’t call you ‘Zero’.”
Since the second conditional describes something that's not true, its verb takes the subjunctive mood, which describes possibility, unlike the first conditional, which describes something true or likely, and takes the indicative mood, which describes the concrete. This distinction is often overlooked, because the subjunctive mood is almost invisible in English-most verbs are no longer conjugated differently in the subjunctive than in the indicative mood1. When it comes to conditional clauses, “to be” is the only verb you’re likely to encounter with a visible difference in conjugation.
Third Conditional: “I coulda been a contender!”
The third conditional is the conditional of might-have-been’s. It describes the outcome of a scenario that did not happen in the past. Since it's constructed in the past perfect, which is as past as they can get, the third conditional also doesn't change its tense when constructed in past tense narrative. Its construction is as follows:
If + past perfect (had + past participle) verb, (then) + would + have + past participle
For example:
Ambrose stared glumly at his chemistry exam. If only he had memorized the transcendental metals as Leona had nagged him to do, he would have gotten an “astonishing” instead of an “exceptional” on his mid-term.
Those Were the Days: Continuous or Habitual Action in the Past
English is a funny old language. It's got any number of grammatical qualities that like to hide behind other grammatical qualities. One of these is grammatical aspect. The aspect of a verb defines its duration-whether it happens all at once, or over a span of time. Given that, it should come as no surprise that you can usually find a verb’s aspect hiding behind its tense. English verbs in simple and perfect tenses, if they belonged to a well-behaved language, would be said to have the perfective aspect-they happen all at once. Verbs in progressive tenses would be said to have the imperfective aspect-they happen repeatedly, or over a period of time. These verbs are cussed little buggers. They like nothing better than to bounce around in non-canonical tense constructions, so when English was being built, they demanded extra bits of tense to indicate action that happens repeatedly or often, and action that has happened repeatedly or often, but doesn't anymore.
The grammarians rummaged around in their syntax toolbox and fished out “used to”. To keep the verbs happy, they threw in “would”, which demanded a personal assistant in the form of a framing clause or sentence. They sent their hapless victims off with the horde of ravening verbs, and when the dust settled, they found the ground littered with sentences like this one:
Glitch used to eat muglug all the time.
This sentence tells us that in the past, Glitch was in the habit of eating muglug. Perhaps he ate a bowl of it for lunch once a week, or maybe he ate it every day, but he may have lost his taste for it, because he doesn’t eat it anymore.
Verbs constructed with “used to” describe repeated or habitual actions that took place in the past, but stopped at some point and didn't continue into the present. Note that with this construction, all the temporal information is contained within the phrasal verb, “used to (do)”. No further elaboration is needed to define when, in relation to the narrative, this action occurred. It was always undertaken and completed prior to the narrative, whether that narrative is in the past or present tense.
Now, consider a habitual action denoted by “would”:
DG and Azkadellia would wander around the woods until sunset.
In this sentence, the “would” tells us that that the wandering happens more than once, but it doesn’t tell us when it happens. Is it happening over the duration covered by the narrative or before the narrative? Do DG and Azkadellia still explore the woods, or have they given it up? Phrasal verbs constructed with “would” can describe habitual action concurrent with or prior to a past-tense narrative, but they need temporal information specified elsewhere.
Consider the following examples:
As children, DG and Azkadellia had loved to explore Finaqua. They would wander the woods until sunset and return home covered in twigs and leaves. Now, they avoided the forest, both fearful of the memories it held.
Or:
In spite of all that had happened, DG and Azkadellia still loved the forest of Finaqua. Every sunny afternoon they would set out for the woods together, and in the evening they would come home covered in twigs and leaves, just as they had when they were children.
In the first example, the habitual action is completed at the time of the narrative. In the second, it is still ongoing.
To summarize, the first conditional is like a chameleon. It takes the tense of the narrative surrounding it. The second conditional is stubborn, and resists a change in tense so that it doesn't imitate other conditionals. The third conditional is aloof; its tense is so far in the past that it can't be any past-er.
When using off-the-cuff tense tools to denote habitual action in the past, remember that “used to” is precise but inflexible, and does the job alone. “Would” is versatile but co-dependent, so it needs a tense-buddy to keep it company.
1. For this particular flavour of subjunctive. There are others that are more widely visible.
Sources:
http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/conditionals.html
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/usedto.html
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/would.html
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/061.html
http://www.bartleby.com/68/57/557.html
With examples from Tin Man, and titles from Laura Joffe Numeroff, The Barenaked Ladies, Budd Schulberg and Gene Raskin.
The word “would” is a grab-bag of grammatical functions, especially when it comes to tense. First and foremost, it’s the past tense of the word “will”, which, in turn is the verb tacked on to other verbs to form the future tense.
You read that right. “Would” is the past tense of the future tense. And that’s its simplest function.
Sorry you clicked, yet?
Don’t worry. This entry covers only conditionals and certain flavours of the past progressive tense.
So what is a conditional, anyway?
Conditionals are sentences that describe hypothetical scenarios. They come in many flavours, but I’ll be discussing only the three main ones you’re likely to come across in narrative prose-first, second and third.
All conditionals are built from one independent clause and one subordinate clause that starts with “if” or “when”. The if-clause defines a condition, and the main clause describes an outcome that can happen only if the condition is fulfilled. For example:
subordinate clause: If DG had not insisted on exploring the caves at Finaqua,
main clause: the O.Z. would never have fallen into turmoil.
Now that that’s sorted, let’s get to the specifics!
The First Conditional: If you give a mouse a cookie...
First conditionals describe the outcomes of conditional scenarios that are likely to occur in the future. They’re constructed as follows:
If + present verb, (then) + future verb
For example:
“Glitch!” cried DG. “If Cain finds out what you’ve done to his hat, he’ll throw a fit!”
To fit the same statement into a past tense narrative, convert the main verb of each clause to the past tense that corresponds to its tense. That is, the present tense verb in the if-clause becomes past, and the future tense verb in the result clause becomes future in past. The new template becomes:
If + simple past verb, (then) + future in past (would) verb
Like so:
DG gawped at the charred fedora. If Cain found out what Glitch had done to his hat, he would throw a fit!
The Second Conditional: "If I had a million dollars...”
The second conditional is the conditional of wishful thinking: it’s used to describe the hypothetical outcome of conditions that are untrue in the present or unlikely in the future, but not impossible. Even though they refer to events occurring (or rather, not occurring) at the time of the narrative, second conditionals are constructed only in the past tense. They don't change their tense when they appear in past tense narratives, because if they did, they would be structurally indistinguishable from third conditionals (hold that thought), leading to confusion of their meaning. The construction is as follows:
If + simple past verb, (then) + future in past (would) verb
Like so:
Present: Though the Witch is secretive about her search, Azkadellia knows that she has not found the Emerald yet. If she had it, she would gloat.
Past: Though the Witch was secretive about her search, Azkadellia knew that she had not found the Emerald yet. If she had it, she would gloat.
Hmm. That construction looks familiar, no? The format looks like the first conditional construed in past tense, right?
Almost.
Consider these second conditional sentences:
”If I was your husband, I would be very afraid for your well-being right now,” sneered Zero.
“If you were my husband,” said Adora coldly, “they wouldn’t call you ‘Zero’.”
Ruh-roh! That’s not right! Let’s try that again:
“If I were your husband, I would be very afraid for your well-being right now,” sneered Zero.
“If you were my husband,” said Adora coldly, “they wouldn’t call you ‘Zero’.”
Since the second conditional describes something that's not true, its verb takes the subjunctive mood, which describes possibility, unlike the first conditional, which describes something true or likely, and takes the indicative mood, which describes the concrete. This distinction is often overlooked, because the subjunctive mood is almost invisible in English-most verbs are no longer conjugated differently in the subjunctive than in the indicative mood1. When it comes to conditional clauses, “to be” is the only verb you’re likely to encounter with a visible difference in conjugation.
Third Conditional: “I coulda been a contender!”
The third conditional is the conditional of might-have-been’s. It describes the outcome of a scenario that did not happen in the past. Since it's constructed in the past perfect, which is as past as they can get, the third conditional also doesn't change its tense when constructed in past tense narrative. Its construction is as follows:
If + past perfect (had + past participle) verb, (then) + would + have + past participle
For example:
Ambrose stared glumly at his chemistry exam. If only he had memorized the transcendental metals as Leona had nagged him to do, he would have gotten an “astonishing” instead of an “exceptional” on his mid-term.
Those Were the Days: Continuous or Habitual Action in the Past
English is a funny old language. It's got any number of grammatical qualities that like to hide behind other grammatical qualities. One of these is grammatical aspect. The aspect of a verb defines its duration-whether it happens all at once, or over a span of time. Given that, it should come as no surprise that you can usually find a verb’s aspect hiding behind its tense. English verbs in simple and perfect tenses, if they belonged to a well-behaved language, would be said to have the perfective aspect-they happen all at once. Verbs in progressive tenses would be said to have the imperfective aspect-they happen repeatedly, or over a period of time. These verbs are cussed little buggers. They like nothing better than to bounce around in non-canonical tense constructions, so when English was being built, they demanded extra bits of tense to indicate action that happens repeatedly or often, and action that has happened repeatedly or often, but doesn't anymore.
The grammarians rummaged around in their syntax toolbox and fished out “used to”. To keep the verbs happy, they threw in “would”, which demanded a personal assistant in the form of a framing clause or sentence. They sent their hapless victims off with the horde of ravening verbs, and when the dust settled, they found the ground littered with sentences like this one:
Glitch used to eat muglug all the time.
This sentence tells us that in the past, Glitch was in the habit of eating muglug. Perhaps he ate a bowl of it for lunch once a week, or maybe he ate it every day, but he may have lost his taste for it, because he doesn’t eat it anymore.
Verbs constructed with “used to” describe repeated or habitual actions that took place in the past, but stopped at some point and didn't continue into the present. Note that with this construction, all the temporal information is contained within the phrasal verb, “used to (do)”. No further elaboration is needed to define when, in relation to the narrative, this action occurred. It was always undertaken and completed prior to the narrative, whether that narrative is in the past or present tense.
Now, consider a habitual action denoted by “would”:
DG and Azkadellia would wander around the woods until sunset.
In this sentence, the “would” tells us that that the wandering happens more than once, but it doesn’t tell us when it happens. Is it happening over the duration covered by the narrative or before the narrative? Do DG and Azkadellia still explore the woods, or have they given it up? Phrasal verbs constructed with “would” can describe habitual action concurrent with or prior to a past-tense narrative, but they need temporal information specified elsewhere.
Consider the following examples:
As children, DG and Azkadellia had loved to explore Finaqua. They would wander the woods until sunset and return home covered in twigs and leaves. Now, they avoided the forest, both fearful of the memories it held.
Or:
In spite of all that had happened, DG and Azkadellia still loved the forest of Finaqua. Every sunny afternoon they would set out for the woods together, and in the evening they would come home covered in twigs and leaves, just as they had when they were children.
In the first example, the habitual action is completed at the time of the narrative. In the second, it is still ongoing.
To summarize, the first conditional is like a chameleon. It takes the tense of the narrative surrounding it. The second conditional is stubborn, and resists a change in tense so that it doesn't imitate other conditionals. The third conditional is aloof; its tense is so far in the past that it can't be any past-er.
When using off-the-cuff tense tools to denote habitual action in the past, remember that “used to” is precise but inflexible, and does the job alone. “Would” is versatile but co-dependent, so it needs a tense-buddy to keep it company.
1. For this particular flavour of subjunctive. There are others that are more widely visible.
Sources:
http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/conditionals.html
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/usedto.html
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/would.html
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/061.html
http://www.bartleby.com/68/57/557.html