Would have been welcomed

Question

1. If I knew your telephone number, I would have invited to the party.

I know the above is fine.
How about the following:

2. However, if you came to the party, you would have been welcomed by everybody.

3. However, if you came to the party, you would have been welcome by everybody.

I just want to know whether my second or third sentence is correct in this context.

Now the party is over. I met this person a couple of days later. I am not sure about the correct sentence.

Taiwandave · Accepted Answer

I would write it like this:

If I had known your telephone number, I would have invited you to the party. If you had come to the party, you would have been welcomed by everybody.

Andrei · Answer

taiwandave

You wrote the following sentence:

If I had known your telephone number, I would have invited you to the party.

Your sentence, to the best of my knowledge of English, is past perfect.

How about the following sentence then:

If I knew your telephone number, I would invite you to the party.
I think the above passes the test. It is a simple past from the beginning to end.

Taiwandave · Answer

1. Had I known your telephone number, I would have invited you to the party.
2. If I knew your telephone number, I would invite you to the party.

Because the party has already happened, and the invitation was never made, [1] is correct. It is what's called the "unreal past". I'm not sure how best to explain this. Perhaps Miriam can step in with an authoritative response.

Novalee · Answer

Given that the party is over and that you met the person a couple of days later, then we must use sentence 1, as taiwandave said, with or without inversion.
Had I known your telephone number, I would have invited you to the party.
OR
If I had known your telephone number, I would have invited you to the party.

This type of conditional is called 'Unreal' or 'Impossible' because the party was already held and we cannot go back in time and phone the person to invite him or her to the party. It's a condition in the past. In these cases we must use a past perfect tense (had known) in the subordinate conditional clause (If...) and a perfect conditional (would have invited) in the main clause.

The other sentence "If I knew your telephone number, I would invite you to the party", would mean "I don't know your telephone number, so I can't phone you and invite you to the party I'm giving tonight (for example)". This type is called 'Improbable', and it implies a condition in the present, not the past as the above mentioned. The tenses used are past simple (knew) in the subordinate clause, and conditional (would invite) in the main one.

Hope you don't get confused

Andrei · Answer

I appreciate the valuble comments made by Taiwandave and Novalee.

Let us assume that I am giving a party tonight. I didn't invite this particular person because I don't have his telephone numbers.

However, I accidently, met him during the lunch break and extended an invitation to the party.
I think the best senetence must include the word 'already' in this conetext.

4.Had I known your telephone number, I would have already invited you to the party.
OR
5.If I had known your telephone number, I would have already invited you to the party.

What do you think on fourth and fifth sentences in this context?

Maj · Answer

Both are correct! Likewise:

-If I had known you were going I would have gone to the party.
-Had I known you were going I would have gone to the party.

The only difference is the position of the verb. You should note that in the second sentence the 'if' disappears.

Taiwandave · Answer

Both [4] and [5] are correct. You seem to have correctly grasped the concept as explained by Novalee.

Miriam · Answer

Hello, Andrei

Your sentence "If I knew your telephone number, I would have invited you to the part" is also correct.
It means that you didn't know the person's telephone number before the party and you still don't know it at the time of speaking.
We are usually taught that "would + infinitive" is always the right choice for cnditional sentences Type II, and "would + have + -ed" is correct in Type III. Yet, that is not always the case. The first sentence in your examples is ok.

Now, sentences 2 and 3 are not.

You said the party was over by the time you met that person in the street, so "If you came" is not correct. "If you came" is not a construction that refers to the past, but to a hypothetical future. It would be correctly used in a sentence such as:
"If you came to my party tomorrow, you would be welcomed."

Sentence 2 is not correct because of the form of the verb you chose.
Sentence 3 is not correct because you did not use the past participle of the verb "welcome" (you should have used "welcomed").

So, if we correct the mistakes, we will have the following sentence:
"If you had come to the party, you would have been welcomed (by everybody).

Miriam

David · Answer

You would have been made welcome sounds better. What do you think?

Would have been welcomed

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