Would have - which tense
Hi, I was recently told the following by a native English speaker:
"You would have seen an announcement today about the companywide lay-offs . Your team is not part of this wave of lay-offs so ignore the announcement for now."
I thought that "would + have" is used in conditional sentences only. For example, Had I known about the lay-offs sooner, I would have found another job. Or to show that I wanted to do something but didn't. For example, I would have helped you fix your car, but I forgot your address. In the case of the announcement sentence, it does not appear to neither of those. I know the conditional part of a sentence can be sometimes implied but it does not appear to be the case in this sentence. Not sure if it helps, but the announcement DID happen in the morning and I spoke to the person in the afternoon.
So what kind of tense is it?
Thank you!
Top answer
This is another use of "would have" that expresses the speaker's belief or assumption.
- This is another use of "would have" that expresses the speaker's belief or assumption.
Get the Weekly English Kit 📬
New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.
This is another use of "would have" that expresses the speaker's belief or assumption.
0anonymousYou would have seen an announcement today about ...
~ You probably saw an announcement today about ...
In this context I take 'would have seen' as 'probably saw'.
If the speaker were certain that you saw the announcement, he would have said You will have seen an announcement ...
As odd as it may seem to use "will" for somet
0Hi, in this case I tend to disagree with Mr. GPY. I would side with Mr. CJ. If the native speaker wanted to express his belief or assumption of something, he would have said "You could have seen an announcement today about the companywide lay-offs", because "could have pp" suggests possibility in the past. I think an if-conditional is implied here, perhaps "if you had visited xx w
0
Related Questions