What form is this? Subjunctive?
Advanced Grammar in Use: Third Edition by Martin Hewings, Published by Cambridge Press, Copyright 2015, Unit 16 page 32.
To talk about an unreal past situation - that is, an imaginary situation or situation that might have happened in the past, but didn't - we use would have + past participle:
- I would have been happy to see him, but I didn't have time.
CalifJim, because you've helped recently with subjunctives, can you comment on the above?
When I saw unreal past situation, that made me think that this above sentence might be a subjunctive. For completeness of thought, I will include a bit more.
The author, Martin Hewings, goes on to write the following:
However, to say that we think that a past situation actually happened, we use will have + past participle:
- As it was cloudy, few people will have seen last night's lunar eclipse. (rather than . . . would have seen . . .)
CalifJim, I am hoping you see this thread and respond. Thank you!
Top answer
Nothing that contains "would" is ever subjunctive. If English were a Romance language, we would label everything with "would" as "conditional (tense or mood)", which is an analog to our usage of "would". The only tenses that are analogs to the subjunctive of the Romance languages are 1) the tenses in the if -clauses ( If I were king ) and 2) the tenses of the mandative constructions we use after certain expressions ( It's important that you be here at noon ).
- Nothing that contains "would" is ever subjunctive.
- If English were a Romance language, we would label everything with "would" as "conditional (tense or mood)", which is an analog to our usage of "would".
- The only tenses that are analogs to the subjunctive of the Romance languages are 1) the tenses in the if -clauses ( If I were king ) and 2) the tenses of the mandative constructions we use after certain expressions ( It's important that you be here at noon ).
- CJ
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Nothing that contains "would" is ever subjunctive.
If English were a Romance language, we would label everything with "would" as "conditional (tense or mood)", which is an analog to our usage of "would".
The only tenses that are analogs to the subjunctive of the Romance languages are 1) the tenses in the if-clauses (If I were king) and 2) the tenses of the man
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