Can / Could and Will / Would

{This thread has connections to the "May/might - Old rumors" thread

http://www.EnglishForward.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=74347

and the "Tenseless Modals" thread.

http://www.EnglishForward.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=73196

I've moved the following posting from "May/might - Old rumors" because these discussions can become long and involved and I think it's best to keep them separate. This will help keep any one thread from becoming unweildy}

JTT wrote:
You and Mr P are still clinging to the discredited prescriptivist notion called "sequence of tenses OR concord of tenses.

Mr Pedantic replied by providing an example:

1. 'Can you swim?' 'Yes, I can swim.'

Twenty years later, after an unpleasant altercation with a bunch of discredited prescriptivists:

2. 'Can you swim?' 'When I had the use of my legs, I could swim. But now I can't.'

If 'could' isn't the past tense of 'can', JT, how do you explain 'could' in #2?

MrP

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JTT:

'can & could' represent the modal pair that are most troublesome, ie. they have similarities that make them seem like they are past and present tenses but they aren't. They are like all other modals in modern English in that they are tenseless.

Tenseless modals can operate in all tense situations.

To Mr Pedantic's query:

It's easy to be fooled and fooled is just what Mr P has been. The connection you see, Mr P, of 'could' as a past tense and 'can' as a present tense is not that at all. It's simply 'could' operating in one of its modal roles.

It's not at all unnatural or unreasonable to expect that historical past tense forms should fill this semantic role to describe a general condition in the past.

What you have mistaken for a syntactic connection is nothing more than a semantic connection.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Grammar Book:

I can't speak French now, but I could when I was a child.

..., this is a semantic, not a syntactic relationship, and it does not hold for other modal pairs; ...

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That the connection between 'can & could' is not syntactic but semantic is made clear when we try to do the same with the other traditional modal pairs:

1. *I won't speak French now, but I would when I was a child.*

2. *I shall not speak French now, but I should when I was a child.*

3. *I may not speak French now, but I might when I was a child.*


The Grammar Book also says, "in fact, in some cases so-called present-tense modals refer to past time". And they give the following example;

Jim may have been late last night. (past meaning)

In actuality, many more than "some" uses of so called "past tense" modals are in present and future situations. And the purported present tense modals very frequently operate in past tense/time situations.

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When someone uses a past tense verb, they expect that it should operate like a past tense verb, right? So when I watch Mr P jump and he asks me,

What did I do?,

I can safely reply, "You jumpED. Similarly, when Jim says, "Where did you go?", I can safely reply, "I went to Fresno" and he will understand the 'wenting' as a finished action.

Such is not the case with 'could'. Let's look at Mr P's example once more.

'When I had the use of my legs, I could swim. But now I can't.'

Mr P asked; "If 'could' isn't the past tense of 'can', JT, how do you explain 'could' in #2?"

Well, as I explained above, this isn't a past tense in the same way that we use 'jumped' or 'ran' or 'spoke' or 'ate' as past tenses. When we try to use this "general past condition" use of 'could' as a real past tense, to wit,

'When I had the use of my legs, I could swim." {okay so far but, }

MrP's character continues;

*"I remember that one Friday in 1978; I could swim ten miles.*,

we get an ungrammatical sentence. 'could' just won't perform like a past tense for the very simple reason that it is NOT a past tense. It steadfastly resists being used in a manner that is, fundamentally, how past tenses are used.