Using "would have + past participle " in real situations

Question

Hi, I just saw a new sentence with the same structure.

A: Where would Bob have taken Holt? (Bob kidnapped Holt and A is trying to find where Holt is being held right now.)
B: I don't know.

That sentece seemed awkward to me because Bob have really taken Holt. Why is A using "would have + v3" form here?

I guessed at the rest of the conditional as : If Bob had had taken Holt, where would he have taken Holt?

And that seemed really wrong since Bob have really taken Holt. When I see "would have + past participle", I automatically assume that this is a past condition that didn't happened in the real world. So using "where would Bob have taken Holt" makes me think Bob didn't take Holt but knowing the context makes that interpretation impossible.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

mango pen 189
Hi, I just saw a new sentence with the same structure.
A: Where would Bob have taken Holt? (Bob kidnapped Holt and A is trying to find where Holt is being held right now.)
B: I don't know.
That sentence seemed awkward to me because Bob ~~have~~ has really taken Holt. Why is A using "would have + v3" form here?
I guessed at the rest of the conditional as : If Bob ~~had had~~ had taken Holt, where would he have taken Holt?

And that seemed really wrong since Bob ~~have~~ has really taken Holt. When I see "would have + past participle", I automatically assume that this is a past condition that didn't ~~happened~~ happen in the real world. So using "where would Bob have taken Holt" makes me think Bob didn't take Holt but knowing the context makes that interpretation impossible.

When I see "would have + past participle", I automatically assume that this is a past condition that didn't ~~happened~~ happen in the real world.

Maybe you shouldn't make that assumption.

Anyway, the 'would have' isn't in an if-clause, so it's not a condition. It's the missing if-clause that has the condition. And that's the clause you're looking for.

When we ask a question like this (Where would Bob have taken Holt?), here's what we're really saying:

If I were Bob, where would I have taken Holt?

We are trying to solve a puzzle by thinking as much as possible like someone else — thinking like Bob in this case.

This is exactly the sort of reasoning that all detective stories are based on. If the detective can find out everything about the criminal, he knows the criminal's behavior, past, present, and future. So the form for the police is

If we, the investigating team, were the murderer, where would we have buried the body?

That's the underlying meaning of Where would he have buried the body?

In all these cases, it's not a matter of concluding that the situation expressed in the question did not happen. Bob took Holt somewhere. The murderer buried the body somewhere.

This is typical when questions are involved rather than statements.

Where would X have ...? / When would X have ...? / Why would X have ...? / How would X have ...? / ...

Remove the question word and you have a situation that really happened. The question word is the unknown part.

CJ

Using "would have + past participle " in real situations

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions