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Unabashed Posted 7 years ago
Grammar

The use of tenses after "Would"

Could you help me, please? Recently I have come across some sentences that seem a bit weird.
1. Lord Henry “Is that very vain of me? I think it is rather vain.”
Dorian “I should think it was, Harry…” (Oscar Wilde - The picture of Dorian Gray)
2. I think we would both say we were spiritual people (That Mitchell and Webb Look - Evil Vicar)
3. So I think it would be useful if we started by your telling me something about your state of mind at the moment. How would you describe it? Would you say you were happy or depressed? Confident or unsure of yourself?
(A bit of Fry and Laurie)
4. You wouldn't know what a pair of lungs did if you hadn't been told, would you? (A bit of Fry and Laurie).

Could you, please, explain why in these sentences past verb forms are used?

  

Top answer

In these examples, the "past tense" is used not in its normal temporal sense but to indicate that an action or state is hypothetical, imagined, wished-for, speculative, etc. -- sometimes called the "unreal" past. g.

— GPY

  • In these examples, the "past tense" is used not in its normal temporal sense but to indicate that an action or state is hypothetical, imagined, wished-for, speculative, etc.
  • -- sometimes called the "unreal" past.
  • g.
  • "I wish I knew ", "If only you were here", "I'd rather you didn't ", etc.
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2 Answers
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In these examples, the "past tense" is used not in its normal temporal sense but to indicate that an action or state is hypothetical, imagined, wished-for, speculative, etc. -- sometimes called the "unreal" past. In your examples it is used in conjunction with modals "would" or "should", but it is also seen in other situations, e.g. "I wish I knew", "If only you were here", "I'd

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Unabashedexplain why in these sentences past verb forms are used?

For me it's just a matter of matching tenses by "point of view".

English verb tenses can be divided into two types. Present-point-of-view tenses and past-point-of-view tenses.

In most sentences the same point of view (POV) is used throughout, though this is not a requirement, of

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