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Nancy1982 Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

Is may cause, may have caused, or might have caused? Thanks for your help.

I'm sorry for any inconveniences that this may cause.
  

Top answer

May have caused, or might have caused cannot be present in sentences in which you are writing about problems which can appear in the future /potential problems. However, if you're sorry about problems caused in the past , then you can't use may cause and should use the other two.

— Marius Hancu

  • May have caused, or might have caused cannot be present in sentences in which you are writing about problems which can appear in the future /potential problems.
  • However, if you're sorry about problems caused in the past , then you can't use may cause and should use the other two.
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3 Answers
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May have caused, or might have caused
cannot be present in sentences in which you are writing about problems which can appear in the future/potential problems.

However, if you're sorry about problems caused in the past, then you can't use may cause
and should use the other two.
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Sorry, I will clarify my question.
Should I write:
Apologies for any inconvenience this has, or may cause.
or
Apologies for any inconvenience this has caused, or may cause.
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Anonymoushas, or may cause
No. You can't do this one because the auxiliaries 'has' and 'may' take different forms of the verb.
Anonymoushas caused, or may cause
Yes. You can do this, but don't use a comma. has caused or may cause.

CJ
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