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Anonymous Posted 12 years ago
Vocabulary
Perfect conditional
Hi.
"The solitary nature of the flight could be a problem. But adding a second seat would have meant adding too much weight to the plane because another parachute and more oxygen, water and food also would have been needed."
That's from the Guardian's article ("Swiss unveil new solar plane for global flight") about the future flight of the solar plane.
My question is: why has the author used the perfect conditional instead of the simple conditional in the text despite the fact that the round-the-world flight is to be done in the future?
Thank you.
"The solitary nature of the flight could be a problem. But adding a second seat would have meant adding too much weight to the plane because another parachute and more oxygen, water and food also would have been needed."
That's from the Guardian's article ("Swiss unveil new solar plane for global flight") about the future flight of the solar plane.
My question is: why has the author used the perfect conditional instead of the simple conditional in the text despite the fact that the round-the-world flight is to be done in the future?
Thank you.
Top answer
The author is recounting the reasoning that the engineers went through at that time in the past. At the time the engineers were thinking, "A second seat would mean adding too much weight. " But now the author is retelling the story, so he backshifts the tenses.
- The author is recounting the reasoning that the engineers went through at that time in the past.
- At the time the engineers were thinking, "A second seat would mean adding too much weight.
- " But now the author is retelling the story, so he backshifts the tenses.
- This is similar to reported speech.
- CJ
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2 Answers
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The author is recounting the reasoning that the engineers went through at that time in the past.
At the time the engineers were thinking, "A second seat would mean adding too much weight. Water and food would be needed."
But now the author is retelling the story, so he backshifts the tenses. This is similar to reported speech.
CJ
At the time the engineers were thinking, "A second seat would mean adding too much weight. Water and food would be needed."
But now the author is retelling the story, so he backshifts the tenses. This is similar to reported speech.
CJ
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