"I wanted to become a teacher in the past"

Question

I wanted to become a teacher in the past.-&gt; I wanted to become a teacher in the past.-&gt; I wanted to become a teacher in the past.-&gt; I wanted to become a teacher in the past.Here in the sentence, can I say that 'in the past' modifies 'become' or 'wanted to become'? If, so what is a meaning difference among them? Or which one is correct?I want to talk with you now.-&gt; I want to talk with you now.-&gt; I want to talk with you now.-&gt; I want to talk with you now.Here in the sentence, which one should I think that 'now' modifies? Compared to the prior sentence, I feel like there is no meaning differnece among them or 'now' can modifies either 'want' or 'talk' or 'want to talk' for each different meaning? Or which one is correct?What do you native English speakers think?Thank you so much as usual in advance.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

Hans51Here in the sentence, can I say that 'in the past' modifies 'become' or 'wanted to become'?

You can safely say that 'in the past' (which is completely unnecessary, by the way) modifies 'wanted'. Wanting is always a desire for something that will come later. We don't know if becoming a teacher ever happened eventually.

Hans51Here in the sentence, which one should I think that 'now' modifies? I want to talk to you now.

Again, I'd say it modifies 'want'. We don't know if you will get what you want, but you want it now. The fact that what you want is also now shouldn't matter.

There is no point in agonizing over these cases, even if they are somewhat ambiguous. By convention, we can just say that the adverb modifies the main verb in the sentence unless there is some very definite evidence that we should analyze the sentence differently.

CJ

"I wanted to become a teacher in the past"

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