Tense agreement may might

Question

How do you do?(1) I believe that I don't need to apply tense agreement rule into the sentences of may/might + present perfect, which means I THOUGHT he MAY have been a teacher & I THOUGHT he MIGHT have been a teacher.  Both sentences are the same.  (I hope so.  Is my understanding right?)(2) Also, I understand that as a simple tense sentence "he may be a student" and "he might be a student" both sentences are the same.  (3) BUT if I add I think, do I have to apply tense agreement rule into the sentences as follows?I think he may be a teacherI thought he might be a teacherCould you please help me clarify it?Thanks.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

deborahjeong(1) I believe that I don't need to apply tense agreement rule into the sentences of may/might + present perfect, which means I THOUGHT he MAY have been a teacher & I THOUGHT he MIGHT have been a teacher. Both sentences are the same. (I hope so. Is my understanding right?)

Right, as long as you have 'may HAVE' or 'might HAVE'. The 'have' makes the expression 'past' so it matches the word 'thought', which is the past tense of 'think'. Even so, you may as well say 'think I may have ...' and 'thought I might have ...'. That way you don't have to think you've got two different grammatical patterns to memorize. (See below.)

deborahjeong(2) Also, I understand that as a simple tense sentence "he may be a student" and "he might be a student" ~~both~~ ~~sentences~~ are the same.

Correct.

deborahjeong(3) BUT if I add I think, do I have to apply tense agreement rule into the sentences as follows? I think he may be a teacher I thought he might be a teacher

Correct. Here are the most usual patterns:

I think he may/might be ready.
I thought he might be ready.
I think he may/might have been ready.
I thought he (may)/might have been ready.

Susan said, "Ken may/might be tired".
Susan said that Ken might be tired.
Susan said, "Ken may/might have been tired".
Susan said that Ken (may)/might have been tired.

Stephen does not deny that he may/might go to Spain.
Stephen did not deny that he might go to Spain.
Stephen does not deny that he may/might have gone to Spain.
Stephen did not deny that he (may)/might have gone to Spain.

There is one complication. In the sentence

Stephen did not deny that he might go to Spain.

you can use 'may' instead of 'might' if Stephen has not yet gone to Spain, but it is still expected that he may. It's still an event that may/might happen. However, if you are talking about a time period that happened so long ago that you already know whether Stephen went to Spain during that time period, use 'might', not 'may'.

Thus, you can say

Stephen [said / did not deny] that he may go to Spain next year.
Or Stephen [said / did not deny] that he might go to Spain, but he didn't.

But not

*Last year Stephen [said / did not deny] that he may go to Spain, but he didn't.

The same holds true of all sentences like that, and if you always use 'might', you don't even have to remember this complication. In fact, you can just about drop 'may' out of your vocabulary completely, and nobody will notice.

CJ

Tense agreement may might

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions