Chp 19: Conditional Sentences

How are conditional categorized?

Conditionals are categorize by the contingencies they express. There are two major categories: real and unreal.

If the habitual conditional is in the past, then the simple past is used in the if clause, and the modal would is used in the result clause.

For example, if he had business in Baltimore, he would usually stay at the Hyatt.

Future conditionals express plans or contingencies. Typically the if clause expresses an event with a verb in the simple present, and the result clause contains the modal will or be going to and expresses a future event that depends on the condition being fulfilled.

For example. If we get more rain, the river is going to be flooded. or. If we don't eat tonight, we'll be starving in the morning.

Result clause Modals are used in future conditionals to express probability for the predicted outcome.

For example. If you start now, you should get there on time. If you start now, you may get there on time. If you start now, you might get there on time.

What are future conditionals?

Future conditionals express predicted future results of conditions, which are also often, but not necessarily, in the future. For example. If you don't leave now, you'll miss your plane.

What are generic conditionals?

Generic conditionals express a fact that appears to be a scientific truth. They are used primarily in academic prose. Usually both verbs are in the simple present tense, but sometime present progressive is used in the if clause. or the modal will is used in the result clause.

what are habitual conditionals?

Habitual conditionals express situations or events as being usual, but not inevitable, results of conditions being met. They have paraphrases using whenever because they express conditions and results that occur repeatedly.

What are hypothetical conditionals?

Hypothetical conditionals express speculations about imagined possible events in the present and future. For example. If I found someone's wallet, I would return it. I would be enjoying this game a lot more if the Clippers were winning.

Hypothetical unreal conditionals about present states differ from real conditions because real conditionals obtain the result and hypothetical ones don't.

Hypothetical conditionals that express comments and speculations about current states have stative verbs in the if clause. They cannot have the variety of verb forms in the if clause that future hypotheticals can have. Moreover, the stative verb is always in the simple past.

What other type of conditional do hypothetical conditionals contrast with?

Hypothetical unreal conditionals, which express speculation about imagined possible future or present events, contrast with future real conditionals, which express future results of real plans or contingencies.

Firstly, When counterfactual conditionals express speculations about past events that did not obtain, they involve actual events in the if clause, but the if clause conditions do not obtain.

If a clause is an affirmative statement, it implies the corresponding negative statement. If it is negative, it implies the affirmative statement.

For example. If a student is caught plagiarizing, they get a warning and an explanation about why it is not acceptable.

If a student is cause plagiarizing a second time, they will come up before the disciplinary board.

What verb tense is used with habitual conditionals?

If the habitual conditional is in the present, then the simple present tense is used in both clauses. For example. if she is his partner, they usually win.

What is the meaning of a conditional sentence?

If x occurs, then y occurs.

What verb tenses are used with hypothetical conditionals? That depends on if it expresses future or present time.

In hypothetical conditionals about future time, the if clause is usually in the simple past, but it can take other forms, such as modals or verbs such as happened, managed, or were + an infinitive. The result clause typically uses modal would. sometimes could or might.

Does the if clause or the then clause occur first?

In spoke English, there is no preference. In written English, there is a slight preference for the if clause to appear first.

Inference conditionals can be about the past or present. with both clauses using either simple present or past verbs, respectively. And they can express differing degrees of likelihood, so they have more possibilities for modals and tense-aspect combinations.

Inference conditionals can also express sarcasm. For example. If Alan has an IQ of 182, then I'm another Einstein! The falseness of the proposition in the result clause mean the the proposition in the if clause, from which it is inferred, must also be false.

What are Inference conditionals?

Inference conditionals express situations or events as logically following from conditions being fulfilled. The proposition of the result clause is inferred from the proposition in the if clause. If x, then y follows.

It gives the listener the option of reacting to these speech acts while making the entire sentence more polite or appropriate. Typical speech acts in the following clauses include instructions. requests. corrections. and hedged opinions. For example.

Instructions. If you'll step over here. I'll give you an application. Requests. If you are going my way, I could use a lift. Corrections. If you recall your Greek mythology, it was Zeus and not Poseidon. Hedged opinions. John is a little too abrupt, in my opinion.

What are three problems students have with conditionals?

Number one. Arabic speakers sometimes establish a correspondence between English simple past and their L1 perfect tense when producing English clauses introduced by the word if.

What are the two forms of unreal conditionals?

Number one. Substitution of would have + past participle. For the past perfect. Number two. Ellipsis of if and subject-Aux inversion.

What are the three condition-results relationships real conditions describe?

Number one. generic or habitual conditionals that always or frequently obtain. Number two. inference conditionals that are conclusions or implications that can be drawn if the condition is fulfilled.

Number two. Korean speakers sometimes mix the L1 tenses occurring in ore than one L1 conditional when crafting English conditionals.

Number three. Chinese does not distinguish between future, hypothetical, and counterfactual conditionals about the past by the use of auxiliary verbs and tense markers. Therefore Chinese L1 speakers have difficulty forming these conditionals.

For example. If you had the photos with you, I could see my new grandson.

Or. If I knew Joan's phone number, we would call her.

For example. if Van Gogh were living, he would be painting digitally.

Or. If Van Gogh were alive, he would paint with a computer mouse instead of a paintbrush.

For example. if you had left, we might never have met.

Or. If the voting machines hadn't been rigged, we would have had a very different outcome.

For example. If I had seen you at the mall, I would have said hello. Both are affirmative so both imply the negative. I did not see you so I did not say hello. Note. the speaker was actually at the mall, so it involves actual events.

Or. If you hadn't locked the side door before we left, the burglar would have gotten in. The first clause is negative, implying affirmative; and the second clause is affirmative, implying negative. Together the clauses imply you did lock it so the burglar did not get in.

In such cases, the verb in the if clause could be in the simple past or present perfect. For example. If you did a good job on the project last summer, you'll get a raise this year.

Or. If you have done everything you boss asked you to do and done it well, then you'll get a raise this year.

What are real conditionals?

Real conditionals are conditionals in which the condition, and hence the result, can be fulfilled.

The if clause in these sentences can lead to the mistaken impression that they are conditionals, with a condition and a results, when in fact they are structures used to perform the speech acts mentioned previously.

Speech act conditionals are probably not worth including in a syllabus, but teachers should be able to recognize them and to explain why they are not real conditionals.

What are speech act conditionals?

Speech act conditionals resemble future conditionals, but their clauses do not have a condition-result relationship. The if clause in a speech act conditional functions as a preface to different speech acts that occur in the following clause.

Often when unless is substituted for if not, the results are either ungrammatical or a change in meaning.

Students should not be taught that unless equals if not. Instead. students should be taught unless equals except if or except in the case that.

Why does unless not equal if not?

Textbook often treat clauses with unless and if clauses with not as having the same meaning and being interchangeable. This is true of future conditionals, but does not always hold true with other types of conditionals.

What is the form associated with writing?

The form associated with writing is an ellipsis of the word if with subject-Aux inversion. For example. If I had known you were coming. becomes. Had I known you were coming.

Why is the form of unreal conditionals tricky?

The form of unreal conditionals is tricky because there are two variations in form. one associated with spoken English. And the other associated primarily with written English.

The verb in counterfactual conditionals expressing speculations about impossible states in the present is always were, which is commonly part of a progressive, as in were + present participle.

The results clause is generally would, could, or might + be + present participle or would + verb.

What are the two types of unreal conditionals?

The two types of unreal conditionals are hypothetical conditionals and counterfactual conditionals.

What is a special use of habitual conditionals?

They can be used to describe a policy that has been established. In this case, the if clause contains a verb in the simple present, and the then clause can also contain a verb in the simple present or use the modal will.

What verb possibilities can be used with future conditionals expressing plans or contingencies?

Typically, with future conditionals expressing plans or contingencies both verbs are in simple present. However, it is possible to talk about a future result that depend upon something that happened in the past.

What are unreal conditionals?

Unreal conditionals express an imagined condition in the if clause and its imagined outcome in the result clause. They can express past, present and future time.

Secondly, counterfactual conditionals express speculations about impossible states or situations in the present. For example. If Mozart were alive today, he would be writing music for movies.

When counterfactual conditionals express speculations about impossible states or situations in the present, the verb were is alway used in the if clause with subjects, including all first-, second-, and third-person singular subjects.

How can conditionals be taught?

You can teach future conditionals expressing suggestions to intermediate students by getting the students to provide a list of suggestions about what to do in a city they are familiar with.

For example. If they go out to eat, they alway go to Chinese.

can be paraphrased as. Whenever they go out to eat, they always go to Chinese.

What are counterfactual conditionals?

counterfactual conditionals express (1) speculations about past events that did not obtain, or (2) speculations about impossible states or situations in the present.

What are the three special uses of Future conditionals? What are the three structures that can follow a future conditional besides predicted future results?

number one. Expressing instructions. Instructions can be included in the then clause of a future conditional. Typically both clauses use simple present.For example. If you see him, tell him I want to talk to him.

What are two possible sources of confusion related to conditionals?

number one. Speech Act conditionals. Number two. Unless does not equal if not.

number two. Expressing questions. questions can be included in the then clause of a future conditional. For example. If he calls, what do I tell him?

number three. Expressing suggestions. suggestions can be included in the then clause of a future conditional. For example. If you intend to do it, you ought to do it soon.

For example. If water is cooled to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, it becomes solid.

or. If light is moving in the direction labeled z, it has two possibilities of polarization.

For example. If we can clean up the pollution in this river, we can clean up the waterways all over the world.

or. If that call is for Susan, it must be her new boyfriend.

What is the tense sequence in counterfactual conditionals about the past?

past perfect in the if clause. And would + have + past participle in the result clause. the modals could and might can also take the place of would in the result clause.

Hypothetical conditionals can also comment on present events. In this case, the if clause expresses condition that is presently not real, but if fulfilled, could result in the imaginary result in the result clause. They always use were + present participle in the if clause, and

would/could/might + present participle in the result clause. For example. If the Clippers were winning, I would be enjoying this game a lot more.

Which is the form associated with speaking?

A change in spoken American English is that "would have + past participle" is being used in both clauses, instead of just in the result clause. Traditionally, it's past perfect in the if clause and would have + past participle in the results clause.

What is the form of a conditional sentence?

A conditional sentence has two clauses, a main clause and subordinate callus that begins with if or a similar word. The if clause contains a proposition knows as the condition, and the results clause contains a proposition stating what happens if the condition is fulfilled.

What are alternatives to using the word if in the if clause?

Alternatives to. if. include provided. provided that. as long as. assuming. and assuming that.

For example. A hypothetical conditional about the future could begin with all of the following. If I happened to get; If I were to get; if I got; If I should get; If I should happen to get; if I managed to get enough money.

And it could end with I would spend, I could spend, I should spend a year in paris studying art.

For example. Traditionally it would sound like. If I had had a little more time, I would have told him about it.

But now. It sounds like. If I would have had a little more time, I would have told him about it. However widespread this form is in speaking, it's still considered ungrammatical in written English.

Number three. future conditionals that describe the probability of something happening in the future.

Caution. These are not hard and fast categories, as the boundaries can sometimes be blurry.

What periods of time to conditional refer to?

Conditional refer to past, present, and future time.