Conditionals

Question

I've fond following sentence on a website. The thing that I cannot understand is why they used "if + past tense" without "would". I mean, if this was a second conditional statement which talk about rare situations, there should be "would" as it is uncertain situation. However, according to the context, the incident that they talk about was in the past and completed few years ago.

It got so bad we pretended to be on our way out if we saw him coming up the path.

Please someone tell me what type of construction is this? In addition, is there any other type of conditionals apart from zero, first, second, third and mixed conditionals.

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

dileepaI've fond following sentence on a website.

It expresses a real condition, not a hypothetical one, in the past.
It actually happened, probably many times.

Whenever (If) we saw him him coming up the path, we pretended to be on our way out.

CalifJim · Answer

If we see him coming up the path, we pretend to be on our way out. (Zero conditional)
If we saw him coming up the path, we pretended to be on our way out. (Past tense of a zero conditional)

dileepais are there any other types of conditionals apart from zero, first, second, third and mixed conditionals.

Yes. Any sentence with an if-clause is a conditional, and you'll see just about any combination of tenses in the clauses of such sentences. It turns out that only the most commonly used conditionals have been given numbers.

Numbering them at all is purely a device for teaching and learning. Once you get past the basics in English, you won't need those numbers anymore and you'll note that some other, unnumbered patterns come up from time to time. No need to panic. It's just that your English has become more advanced, and you don't need the numbers as some kind of crutch anymore.

CJ

Conditionals

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