Subjunctive

Question

1. If I were to make an accurate drawing of this barn and put it in a show, I'm sure I would get all kinds of criticism for my poor perspective.

2. If someone were to say "Life is a cup of coffe," it is unlikely that you would have heard this expression before.

Q) I found the two subjunctive sentences that look similar but the tense is different.
Can "would have + past participle" and "would + a bare infinitive" come either in #1 and 2?

Terryxpress · Accepted Answer

Look very carefully at the time perspectives in each sentence: that is, start with NOW, the moment of speaking, and ask yourself, when did/would these happen in this sentence.

...and tell us what you thi

nk.

Moon7296 · Answer

Ah.. now I got the point. (#1 is the subjunction that something that does not happen now and #2 is the subjunction that someone said something. Am I right?)

But additionally, I want to know how to change #1 to the tense that happened before #1.
For example, is it OK to say like this? If I had been to make an accurate drawing of..., I would have got a kind of....?

Terryxpress · Answer

If I were to make an accurate drawing of this barn and put it in a show, I'm sure I would get all kinds of criticism for my poor perspective.

If I were to make
So - as I speak, this has not been done - it has not happened. So if...if it happened, it would be in the future:
Look at the actions/events in your sentence pictorially:

.........................NOW.......|M.................
where M = making the drawing
I would get...criticism
You can't be criticised unless the drawing is done, and has been put on show, so that must occur even further in the hypothetical future:
.........................NOW.......|M.........|C........
where C = criticized

Compare with your second sentence:
If someone were to say
Again, this is in the hypothetical future:
.........................NOW.......|S.................
where S= saying it

that you would have heard

.........................NOW.......|S.................
<...would...have...heard......>|

The second verb form covers the other person's whole life up to NOW, and then beyond, into the hypothetical future when someone actual says to them, "Life is a cup of coffee."

The speaker uses the correct tenses, appropriate to the time sequence of hypothetical events, and so we can't just swap the tenses around and preserve the same meaning.

Subjunctive

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