if disclosure would...

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Hi, guys,I am here.  I hope you can help me anyway.Recently I encountered a lot of sentences like the following:A prosecutor must ask a judge to seal an affidavit if disclosure would jeopardize confidential informants, if it would harm a continuing investigation or if it contained information from an unexpired court-ordered wiretap.I am not sure the usage of the modal verb WOULD is correct here.  But I am not sure why?  Is it because the condtionnal?  But why cannot we just use "If disclosure jeopardized confidential informants"?  Or is it because we are in a general situation, WOULD is possible even it refers to the future?  But if this is the case, why not WILL? I am so confused?  could you please help me out?Thank you in advance.

Mr Wordy · Accepted Answer

Hi wingedfish,

This is how I understand it.

"would" is correct. The sense is "it would jeopardise informants if it was disclosed, but in fact it won't be disclosed (because the judge will seal it)".

"if disclosure jeopardized confidential informants" is wrong because it implies that the disclosure might already have happened. In this case, if you did want that meaning you'd actually be more likely to say "has jeopardized", but compare:

Please tell me if my actions offended you. (at some time in the past)

"will" is wrong because it implies that the disclosure will happen in the future. Compare:

Go ahead and do it, if it will make you happy. (it will make you happy in the future)

On another point, I would write "contains" here, not "contained".

Wingedfish · Answer

Thank you very much for your reply

It helps me a lot in the understanding of the sentence! However, I am still confused because most of the grammar books say that WOULD with a hypothetical meaning cannot appear in a subordinate clause. For example:

If a serious crisis would occur, the government should take immediate action.

Maybe that's a different sentence with the former one? And still, I learned that SHOULD here in the if-clause is quite right to suggest a hypothetical meaning. However, there are a lot of sentences like this (most of which are colloquial) in the corpus of contemporary American English.

Do you think that these sentences are only mistakes made by the native speakers?

Looking forward to your reply and thank you very much!

Mr Wordy · Answer

wingedfishIf a serious crisis would occur, the government should take immediate action.

In the meaning that's almost certainly intended (crisis occurs, then government takes immediate action), this is wrong. You would say, in increasing order of formality (as I perceive it), "if a serious crisis occurs...", or "... were to occur ...", or "should occur".* (With an implied "otherwise" after "crisis", and an assumption that the action pre-empts the crisis, the sentence makes some kind of strained and unlikely sense -- but if that's what I meant I would never write it this way.)

One difference between this sentence and the original example, then, is that in the original the hypothetical isn't going to happen, while in the above sentence it might. Compare:

The government should take immediate action if a serious crisis would occur. -- wrong.

The government should suppress the report if its publication would damage national interests. -- OK (the suppression is clearly pre-emptive).

There are various other contexts when you can use "if ... would". One is loosely the opposite of the above, when it is hypothesised that an action will bring about some stated outcome.

I'd support this measure if it would help to reduce unemployment.

* Edit. There's another possibility here that I forgot about: "occurred". This doesn't come quite so naturally to me in this sentence (given "should" in the sense of "ought to" in the second clause), but others may differ.

Wingedfish · Answer

Thank you very much for your explanation:)
When I read the first sentence again, I found another problem. Can I say:
......if disclosure were to jeopardize confidential informants, if it were to harm a continuing investigation.....????
In my understanding, WERE TO like WOULD, does not imply that the action might have already happened. Do you agree with me?

Mr Wordy · Answer

"were to", in the types of sentence we're talking about, is used for things that may happen in the future, at least in principle. For example,

What would you do if you were to win the lottery?

(There are other ways to say this too. Often people would say "...if you won the lottery". "were to" is a little more formal.)

"were to" does not work in the original sentence about the affidavit because the things mentioned are not things that may happen in the future. They would happen if steps were not taken to prevent it. But because those steps are to be taken, they actually won't happen.

Wingedfish · Answer

I agree with you, and your explanations clarified the situation here.  Thank you very much.  But there is still one thing left.  I am not sure what the article "it" refers in the orginal sentence "if it would harm a continuting investigation".  Does it refer to the "affidavit' or "disclosure"?  And how can I understand the modal usage WOULD in this second condtiion?  Is it the same with the first condition?

Mr Wordy · Answer

Strictly, I suppose the first "it" would make more sense if it referred to the disclosure, but it can hardly do so because the second "it" must refer to the affidavit. I think we can read it as something like

... if the affidavit (were it to become public knowledge) would harm a continuing investigation...

I suspect that the author may not have been especially aware of this point, but was satisfied that the general meaning of the sentence came across well enough.

As far as the use of "would" is concerned, both instances mean the same thing and work in the same way.

CalifJim · Answer

I hope I'm not too late to add a comment.
I think of this particular use of the if ... would ... pattern as an add-on clause to an imperative or quasi-imperative (must, can't, have to, not be allowed to, ...).
The subject of the if-clause is usually it, referring back to the action of the main clause -- or its reverse. In any case, the subject usually refers to a whole action or event, not just to a person or thing. The predicate of the if-clause is normally a potential result.
The prototypes are therefore: Don't do that if it would cause problems. Do that if not doing that would cause problems.
Paraphrasing with "perfectly normal Type 2 conditionals": If (it would cause problems if you did that), don't do it. If (it would cause problems if you did not do that), do it. The double if is characteristic of these patterns.

________

Example:
Police are not permitted to chase a suspect at high speed if it would endanger other motorists.
Quasi-imperative: not permitted
Subject of if-clause: it ( = chasing a suspect at high speed)
Potential Result: other motorists endangered
Underlying "normal" form: It would endanger other motorists if police were permitted to chase a suspect at high speed, so they are not permitted to do so.

________
Example:
You must seal the document if disclosure would jeopardize the proceedings.
Quasi-imperative: must
Subject of if-clause: disclosure (Disclosing the contents of the document is the reverse of sealing it.)
Potential Result: the proceedings in jeopardy
Underlying "normal" form: It would jeopardize the proceedings if the document were disclosed, so you must not disclose it, i.e., you must seal it.

_______
Example:
The trainers are requested to keep the snakes out of sight if their presence on stage would create a panic.

Analysis left to the reader.

___________

Note that this is only one subclass of patterns that allow if ... would .... I focused on this subclass because it seemed most like the example you provided.
CJ

Wingedfish · Answer

Thank you C.J. You have made a very vivid explanation.
For you last sentence, I understand it as the following:
"their presence on stage" is the reverse of "keep the snakes out of sight"
so:

Quasi-imperative: are requested to
Subject of if-clause: their presence on stage

Potential Result: creating a panic
Underlying "normal" form: ...?
But I am not sure what the underlying "normal " form is. Could you please tell me?

CalifJim · Answer

Good analysis! You got the reverse right. "present on stage" vs. "out of sight"

The underlying "normal" form is:

It would create a panic if the snakes were present on stage, so you must keep them out of sight.
Note that this is an underlying idea, not a paraphrase of the whole sentence. The whole sentence can be analyzed as follows (with the double if):
If (it would create a panic if the snakes were present on stage), the trainers are requested to keep them out of sight.
CJ

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