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Anonymous Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

Future in the past?

I am struggling to understand a construction. In the sentence: "The concert was to have started today." What construction is this? Is it future plan "are to/ am to" but conjugated for past, plus present perfect? Thanks for any help!
  

Top answer

You use the construction of was/were + to + have + past participle to talk about past events which did not happen . " only the first one "was to have started" infers that the concert did not actually happen. The second one, "should have started" infers the expectation that it would have started, but no insight into whether it did or did not.

— KJinCali79

  • You use the construction of was/were + to + have + past participle to talk about past events which did not happen .
  • " only the first one "was to have started" infers that the concert did not actually happen.
  • The second one, "should have started" infers the expectation that it would have started, but no insight into whether it did or did not.
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2 Answers
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You use the construction of was/were + to + have + past participle to talk about past events which did not happen. "The concert was to have started today, but it was cancelled due to bad weather."

You could also use a modal, "The concerted should have started today, but it was cancelled due to bad weather."

Note, however, that if you only include the first part of
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The idiom is "is to". There are only five forms.

am to, is to, are to, was to, were to.

You can paraphrase these by inserting 'supposed', or 'expected', or 'going'.

The 'to' belongs to an infinitive, which can be any of four:

to take, to have taken, to be taken, to have been taken.

So, The concert was to have started today ~ The concer
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