Would have known
His 1926 exclusive on a covert collaboration between the Reichswehr and the Soviet Red Army brought the German government to collapse. Other journalists would have known of the secret deal, which was common knowledge among European intelligence agencies, just as they would have known that making it public risked being sent to prison for treason in Germany. They decided not to publish. Voigt did.
I've got some problems with pinpointing the understanding of the verb phrase would + have + past participle in sentences that are non-conditionals like those in the paragraph above. It seems to me that "other journalist" had just known of the "secret deal" but, in the passage above, instead of the past perfect or simple past tense, the modal construction would have known is used.
My question is: What sort of modality does the would have known introduce in non-conditional sentences like those cited in the post? Does it suggest a kind of deduction on the part of the author of that passage?
Top answer
anonymous My question is: What sort of modality does the would have known introduce in non-conditional sentences like those cited in the post? Does it suggest a kind of deduction on the part of the author of that passage? Yes, it does suggest deduction.
- anonymous My question is: What sort of modality does the would have known introduce in non-conditional sentences like those cited in the post?
- Does it suggest a kind of deduction on the part of the author of that passage?
- Yes, it does suggest deduction.
- It shades into "must have known", which in turn shades into "surely they knew".
- CJ
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anonymousMy question is: What sort of modality does the would have known introduce in non-conditional sentences like those cited in the post? Does it suggest a kind of deduction on the part of the author of that passage?
Yes, it does suggest deduction. It shades into "must have known", which in turn shades into "surely they knew".
CJ
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