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Johnson13 Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

Seems/would seem

We say

eg if there were bad news we would hear it.

and it's impossible to change WOULD to WILL, because it's subjunctive.

By a Nobel Prize Laureate in literature:

-I quite agree with your estimate of Tarski; no other logician of his generation (unless it were yourself) seems to me his equal.

The unless-clause shows it subjunctive, must SEEMS be changed to WOULD SEEM?
  

Top answer

Johnson13 must SEEMS be changed to WOULD SEEM? Not if it's a Nobel laureate saying it. Added to that, the comment is parenthetical, which by definition disconnects it from the structure of the sentence it is inserted into.

— Mister Micawber

  • Johnson13 must SEEMS be changed to WOULD SEEM?
  • Not if it's a Nobel laureate saying it.
  • Added to that, the comment is parenthetical, which by definition disconnects it from the structure of the sentence it is inserted into.
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4 Answers
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Johnson13 must SEEMS be changed to WOULD SEEM?
Not if it's a Nobel laureate saying it. Added to that, the comment is parenthetical, which by definition disconnects it from the structure of the sentence it is inserted into.
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Johnson13no other logician of his generation ... seems to me his equal.
The clause above is independent. It can have any tense.
Johnson13unless it were yourself
This is just another way of saying 'except you', which modifies 'logician', not the whole clause, so it doesn't have the right grammatical connection to the indepen
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Thank you, Jim.

So do you think

-We would not go to Beijing, unless we are required.

is correct; and ARE and WERE are equally good?
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Johnson13We would not go to Beijing, unless we are required.
No, those tenses are linked:

We would not go to Beijing, unless we were required to.
We will not go to Beijing, unless we are required to.
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