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Anonymous Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

Conditionals: is vs. was

A. Is it rape if it was your boyfriend?
B. Is it cool if he joined the basketball team yesterday?


Are the above sentences grammatically correct?
Or should I use 'was' instead of 'is' as follows?

C. Was it rape if it was your boyfriend?
D. Was it cool if he joined the basketball team yesterday?


Please advice as well which sentences are real and which are unreal conditionals. Thanks.
  

Top answer

None are unreal conditionals. Unreal conditionals are Type 2 ( Would it be rape if he were your boyfriend? ) and Type 3 ( Would it have been rape if it had been your boyfriend?

  • None are unreal conditionals.
  • Unreal conditionals are Type 2 ( Would it be rape if he were your boyfriend?
  • ) and Type 3 ( Would it have been rape if it had been your boyfriend?
  • ) Is/Was : As I have already told you in your other thread, it depends on whether the speaker is thinking 'now and any time' or 'at that time'.
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2 Answers
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None are unreal conditionals. Unreal conditionals are Type 2 (Would it be rape if he were your boyfriend?) and Type 3 (Would it have been rape if it had been your boyfriend?)

Is/Was: As I have already told you in your other thread, it depends on whether the speaker is thinking 'now and any time' or 'at that time'.
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Thank you, Mister Micawber. I really appreciate it.

I'm sorry, I opened a new thread for these questions because I thought "Is it rape if he were your boyfriend?" was an unreal conditional unlike the real conditional examples in my other thread. I thought the answers would be different.

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