Conditionals to talk about present results of past hypothetical actions

Question

I found the following sentences on a movie that I've watched recently. In that sentence they talk about present results of a past hypothetical situation. In fact, I cannot understand the grammar associated with these sentences. I mean, what a type of conditionals that the following sentence is related to: first, second, third or mixed.

Did we hurt your feelings?
I'm so sorry if we did.

If I had written the above sentence it would have used mixed conditionals like the following sentence.

I would be so sorry, if we had done.

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

dileepaDid we hurt your feelings?
I'm so sorry if we did.

That is very common use of the if-clause. It is not first, second or third conditional. The other person knows the answer, so it is not a hypothetical situation, but something that actually happened.

If means "If it is true that (statement)"

e.g. If (it is true that ) we hurt your feelings, then I am sorry. (The person knows if his feelings were hurt or not.)

dileepaI would be so sorry, if we had done that.

Your sentence is incomplete. The verb "had done" requires an object.

In this case, the answer about hurting his feelings is unknown, because it is not an actual situation.

CalifJim · Answer

dileepa~~what a type~~ what type of conditional is ~~that~~ the following sentence is related to: first, second, third or mixed?

It's not any of those. A conditional sentence is just a sentence that has an if-clause. You can use just about any tense in either clause of a conditional sentence.

Not all conditionals are numbered. Only the conditionals that are most troublesome for learners are numbered, and that's for the purpose of teaching. Most native speakers who are not involved in teaching English have no idea what first, second, and third conditional mean.

dileepaDid we hurt your feelings? I'm so sorry if we did.

Here it's just that if we hurt your feelings (in the past), we are very sorry (in the present) about the fact that we hurt your feelings (in the past).

It's one of those conditional sentences that I like to call self-referential. Both clauses reference (implicitly at least) the same action. The situation in the main clause is not necessarily caused by nor logically implied by the situation in the if-clause. These kinds of sentences don't usually fall into one of the three numbered categories.

If we hurt your feelings, I am sorry that we hurt your feelings.

"sorry" is a typical case. "sorry if" is almost equivalent to "sorry that".

I'm sorry if I said something controversial.
I'm sorry if I didn't address your concerns.

But there are other contexts:

There was an interesting article on gene splicing in the paper yesterday if you are interested in that sort of thing.
I'd rather not say, but if you really want to know, Tom and Jan just got divorced.

dileepa
If I had written ...
... like the following sentence.
I would be so sorry, if we had ~~done.~~ hurt your feelings.

No. That's far too indirect to be an effective apology.

CJ

Conditionals to talk about present results of past hypothetical actions

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