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Zuotengdazuo Posted 8 years ago
Mia asks Vincent to come up with something interesting to talk about. Vincent says he has an idea but asks her to promise not to get offended.
MIA: No! No, no, no. You can't promise somethin' like that. I have no idea what you're gonna ask me, so you can go ahead and ask me what you're gonna ask me, and my natural response could be to get offended. Then, through no fault of my own I would've broken my promise.
Pulp Fiction, movie
Hi. I suppose the conditional for the underlined part is "If I (had) promised that and you (had) said something offensive to me (now), I would've broken my promise through no fault of my own (later)", which has a counterfactual reading. A sentence may be a third conditional pattern superficially, but it doesn't mean the event referred to is necessarily in the past - it can be any time. But "would break" also works here.Would you agree?
Thank you.
Grammar
A sentence may be a third conditional pattern superficially
Mia asks Vincent to come up with something interesting to talk about. Vincent says he has an idea but asks her to promise not to get offended.MIA: No! No, no, no. You can't promise somethin' like that. I have no idea what you're gonna ask me, so you can go ahead and ask me what you're gonna ask me, and my natural response could be to get offended. Then, through no fault of my own I would've broken my promise.
Pulp Fiction, movie
Hi. I suppose the conditional for the underlined part is "If I (had) promised that and you (had) said something offensive to me (now), I would've broken my promise through no fault of my own (later)", which has a counterfactual reading. A sentence may be a third conditional pattern superficially, but it doesn't mean the event referred to is necessarily in the past - it can be any time. But "would break" also works here.Would you agree?
Thank you.
Top answer
Here's my interpretation. If you ask me, I might get offended. (looking toward the future) Supposing I got offended, then at that (hypothetical future) time: If I had promised (earlier) not to be offended I would (already) have broken my promise.
- Here's my interpretation.
- If you ask me, I might get offended.
- (looking toward the future) Supposing I got offended, then at that (hypothetical future) time: If I had promised (earlier) not to be offended I would (already) have broken my promise.
- The speaker puts herself in the future, and makes a claim that will be true at that future time.
- It's a matter of shifting the temporal viewpoint.
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1 Answers
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Here's my interpretation.
If you ask me, I might get offended. (looking toward the future)
Supposing I got offended, then at that (hypothetical future) time: If I had promised (earlier) not to be offended I would (already) have broken my promise.
The speaker puts herself in the future, and makes a claim that will be true at that future time. It's a matter of shifting th
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