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English 1b3 Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

'would make'

Any of the candidates still in the race would make a better president than the incumbent.

1) Is 'would make' a future in the past or the implied second conditional referring to the present/future time? In other words, is this sentence in the present or past tense/time?

Thanks
  

Top answer

There is not enough context to determine that. As an isolated sentence, the native speaker's first impression is more likely to be that it is an implied second conditional, but there are contexts in which it just might be taken to be a future of the past. CJ

— CalifJim

  • There is not enough context to determine that.
  • As an isolated sentence, the native speaker's first impression is more likely to be that it is an implied second conditional, but there are contexts in which it just might be taken to be a future of the past.
  • CJ
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7 Answers
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There is not enough context to determine that. As an isolated sentence, the native speaker's first impression is more likely to be that it is an implied second conditional, but there are contexts in which it just might be taken to be a future of the past.

CJ
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Thank you!

They all wanted to be president, and they all had a chance. Any of the candidates still in the race would make a better president than the incumbent.



Is this now future in the past, instead of implied conditional?



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Now it's tilting toward a future in the past. The purely conditional form in that context is:

Any of the candidates still in the race would have made a better president than the incumbent.
______

It's never going to make a really convincing future in the past, however, because the state of affairs in which each of the candidates did become a president who was better
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CalifJimAny of the candidates still in the race would have make a better president than the incumbent

Is this a typo or yet another phrasing I'm not familiar with?
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CalifJim It's never going to make a really convincing future in the past, however, because the state of affairs in which each of the candidates did become a president who was better than the incumbent could never have taken place. A really clear-cut case of future of the past would contain a situation that actually could and did happen.


Yes, but it
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English 1b3Yes, but it is not saying that in the future of the past that they all become president. It is just saying that in the future of the past, they would all make better presidents. Doesn't this mean it is OK?
... mean that what is OK? The original sentence? It's OK regardless of what interpretation you give it. I assumed you knew the sente
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