Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 757 views

    Inverted Conditionals

    Uploaded by

    petrolejkas1
    The document discusses three examples of inverted subject-verb word order in conditionals in English. 1) For future conditionals, you can say "should it rain, I'll stay home" instead of "if it rains, I'll stay home". 2) For present conditionals imagining a different present, you can say "were he ill, I'd look after him" instead of "if he were ill, I'd look after him". 3) For past conditionals imagining a different past, you can say "had I known, I would have gone home earlier" instead of "if I had known, I would have gone home earlier".

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Inverted Conditionals

    Uploaded by

    petrolejkas1
    757 views2 pages
    The document discusses three examples of inverted subject-verb word order in conditionals in English. 1) For future conditionals, you can say "should it rain, I'll stay home" instead of "if it rains, I'll stay home". 2) For present conditionals imagining a different present, you can say "were he ill, I'd look after him" instead of "if he were ill, I'd look after him". 3) For past conditionals imagining a different past, you can say "had I known, I would have gone home earlier" instead of "if I had known, I would have gone home earlier".

    Original Description:

    english grammar

    Original Title

    inverted conditionals

    Copyright

    © Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The document discusses three examples of inverted subject-verb word order in conditionals in English. 1) For future conditionals, you can say "should it rain, I'll stay home" instead of "if it rains, I'll stay home". 2) For present conditionals imagining a different present, you can say "were he ill, I'd look after him" instead of "if he were ill, I'd look after him". 3) For past conditionals imagining a different past, you can say "had I known, I would have gone home earlier" instead of "if I had known, I would have gone home earlier".

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    757 views2 pages

    Inverted Conditionals

    Uploaded by

    petrolejkas1
    The document discusses three examples of inverted subject-verb word order in conditionals in English. 1) For future conditionals, you can say "should it rain, I'll stay home" instead of "if it rains, I'll stay home". 2) For present conditionals imagining a different present, you can say "were he ill, I'd look after him" instead of "if he were ill, I'd look after him". 3) For past conditionals imagining a different past, you can say "had I known, I would have gone home earlier" instead of "if I had known, I would have gone home earlier".

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    'Inverted subject verb word order in conditionals' Marcela asks: A very specific question, about grammar.

    Is there a rule about 'inverted subject verb word order in conditionals? Martin Parrott answers: Yes there is. It sounds terribly complicated - but really there are three examples when you can, kind of, invert the subject and the verb, and it's easy to learn them - but they're not terribly common. Example 1: Future The first case is a conditional referring to the future. You might say, if it rains, I'll stay at home. But, there is an alternative to that. Instead of saying 'if it rains', you can say 'should it rain'. Now there you're inverting, if you like, the verb should (it's an auxiliary verb) and the subject - inverting the order. That's for conditionals for the future: should it rain I'll stay at home, should it be fine, I'll go out. It's a little bit unusual, and it's a little bit formal. Example 2: Present There are two more phrases which involve some degree of inverting (changing round the subject and the verb). There's also what we sometimes call the second conditional: they are conditionals where we're talking about the present and imagining it's the present. It's different in some ways - so I've got a friend who's really healthy and well and doesn't need looking after, but if he were ill, I'd look after him. We have another conditional which is sometimes called the second conditional - which we use to refer to things in the present when we imagine if they were different. So for example: I've got a friend who's really healthy, never ill, never needs looking after, but [I might imagine it!] if he were ill, what would I do? If he were ill, I'd look after him. Now there is another way of saying that, which is were he ill, I'd look after him - and there, we'd invert the auxiliary verb and the subject. So, instead of he were ill we changed it to were he ill and we leave off the 'if'. So that's our second example. Of course, that's quite an interesting one too, because we're using 'were' instead of 'was' and remember in sentences like this where we're talking about the present and we're imagining it different (our second conditional sentences), we can use 'were' instead of 'was' after the subject. We can't say was he ill, I'd look after him - it's the 'were' here. Were he ill, I'd look after him, were he miserable, I would try and cheer him up, were he poor, I'd give him presents. Example 3: Conditional to talk about the past Normally if we're talking about the past and imagining if things were different, we use if and then we use what we call the past perfect tense. So, if I had known he was tired, I would have gone home earlier (I stayed there all night talking to him; I didn't know he was tired). If I'd known - I had known he was tired, I would have gone home earlier. There's an alternative to that we can use. Instead of saying if I had known, we can say had I known. We invert the 'had', the auxiliary verb and the subject so our alternative to if I had known is had I known. If I had seen him, I would have spoken to him had I seen him I would have spoken to him. If she had got the job, she would have been happier had she got the job, she would have been happier. All the same

    The interesting thing about these three examples is, in a way theyre all the same. In each of these examples, we get rid of if and then we invert (we change the order of) the auxiliary verb and the subject. And each of them is more formal than using if, and each of them suggests that the condition that this if clause, the condition is a bit less probable.

    You might also like

    pFad - Phonifier reborn

    Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

    Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


    Alternative Proxies:

    Alternative Proxy

    pFad Proxy

    pFad v3 Proxy

    pFad v4 Proxy