tarantulanebula
New
It sounds silly, but, don't laugh, I'm serious.
English language is full of syntax, including tense(time + aspect), verb inflections, subject-operator inversion, cleft sentences, gender and number concord between subjects and verbs, etc.
Some languages, e.g. Chinese, don't have any of those syntax, when we want to express a meaning, we always add some words into the sentence.
For example, there is an English sentence like this:
Sentence 1: [I play football.]
If I want to change its meaning, to express I don't play football now, but I played football in an indefinite past time, I can change it into this:
Sentence 2: [I played football.]
In Chinese language, we don't change the tense of the verb "play" to achieve the above effect, our verbs are always in the same form, we add some words to express that the activity happened in an indefinite past time, like:
Sentence 3: [I play football in an indefinite past time.]
This is not grammatical in English, but Chinese language expresses meaning in this way. There are no verb inflections, only adding words with the wanted meaning.
So, being a Chinese, I have innate difficulty to understand the grammar of "hypothetical past". The following is my interpretation, I don't know whether it is correct.
A sentence containing an "if clause" as conditional adverbial in indicative mood can be like this:
Sentence 4: [If I have binoculars, I can see that comet clearly.]
This sentence has two implications:
(1) I'm stating the fact that condition "I have binoculars" can cause the result "I can see that comet clearly".
(2) Whether I have binoculars? I'm not saying. I don't know or I'm not telling you, at least just in this very sentence.
If I change the Sentence 4 into the grammar of hypothetical past, it will be like this:
Sentence 5: [If I had binoculars, I could see that comet clearly.]
This sentence also has two implications, different from the Sentence 4:
(1) I'm stating the fact that condition "I have binoculars now" can cause the result "I can see that comet clearly now".
(2) Whether I have binoculars now? I am saying clearly that I really don't have binoculars, it's sure, or I'm not totally certain but probably. In other words, the condition "I had binoculars" and the result "I could see that comet clearly" are only a pair of hypotheses of which they two have a deduction relationship. And these hypotheses are contradictory to the fact.
Chinese English learners know the verb in the "if clause", i.e. "had" is the past form of the verb "have", and the verb in the "main clause", i.e. "could" is the past form of the modal auxiliary verb "can", so many of them think that the Sentence 5 expresses whatever meaning in a past time.
In fact, the Sentence 5 doesn't express anything in a past time, its whole time frame is within now, the use of the past form of the verbs is just for expressing a hypothetical meaning and a violation to the fact.
In Chinese language, we don't speak in this way, we don't shift a verb's tense to the past to express a hypothetical meaning. Chinese verbs don't have inflections, so you can't shift their tense, when we want to express a hypothetical meaning, we add words: "..., but those are hypotheses and contradictory to the fact.".
Things get more complicated when I wanted to express a meaning not only being a hypothesis, but also being in a past time. I had learned that, English speakers use past forms of verbs to express a hypothetical meaning, what would be left for them to express a hypothetical meaning which is itself in the past?
Then I learned that they use perfective tense to shift even further back in time to express a hypothetical meaning in a past time, like this:
Sentence 6: [If I had had binoculars (yesterday night), I could have seen that comet clearly (yesterday night).]
In Chinese language, we don't speak in this way, we don't shift even further back in time to express a hypothetical meaning in a past time. Chinese verbs don't have inflections, so you can't shift their tense, when we want to express a hypothetical meaning in a past time, we add words: "..., those are assumed to happen in a past time but are only hypotheses and are contradictory to the fact.".
Some Chinese English learners stop learning here, they say: "English language is impossible to learn, I have tried my best to finally successfully have understood that in English you change a verb into its past form to express an action in a past time, now you have told me again that they don't use past forms of verbs to express a meaning in a past time but to express a meaning in a hypothetical now? This is what I can barely understand and you are even telling me now that they use an even much much more complicated structure to express a hypothetical meaning in a past time, and this hypothetical meaning in a past time was contradictory to the fact in the past time? How could I understand these? Bye bye English language."
Fortunately, I seem to have understood these. Congratulations to myself! But understanding these doesn't mean that I have understood English language, there are things even more tricky beyond my imagination.
Both Sentence 5 and Sentence 6 are in hypothetical past, the pair of "if clause" and "main clause" within each of these two sentences is either in the present or in the past. There can be a sentence whose "if clause" is in the past and whose "main clause" is in the present, or vice versa. So I can have:
Sentence 5: [If I had binoculars, I could see that comet clearly.]
Sentence 6: [If I had had binoculars (yesterday night), I could have seen that comet clearly (yesterday night).]
Sentence 7: [If I had had binoculars (yesterday night), I could retrieve it (now) and could use it to see that comet clearly.].
Sentence 8: [If I had binoculars (now), I could have seen that comet clearly (yesterday night).]
Many Chinese English learners can't understand the Sentence 8, they think, how could "now" determine the "past"? Past is past, they are fixed, whether I have binoculars or not now doesn't in any way influence whether I saw that comet clearly yesterday night. So the Sentence 8 is wrong.
I think in the Sentence 8, it is not that "if clause" determines "main clause", rather, "if clause" deduces "main clause", like you can observe chemical residuals to deduce what were the chemical reagents. That being said, the Sentence 8 means, if I don't have binoculars now, I probably didn't have it yesterday night, either, so I probably didn't see that comet clearly, on the opposite, if I have binoculars now, I might also have it yesterday night, so I probably did see that comet clearly, yet, the fact is that I really don't have it now.
I joined many Chinese English language learning groups, I found not many really understood the Sentence 8. I'm also not sure about my own interpretations. Did I make any mistake?
I think, this is a silly question but it should be an interesting problem among many language speakers whose mother tongues are not like English in being full of syntax structures. They and we (I mean we Chinese people) innately have difficulty of being accustomed to use a pair of "if clause" and "main clause" with each of them being in a neat structure and correlating to each other to express a subtle modal meaning.
English language is full of syntax, including tense(time + aspect), verb inflections, subject-operator inversion, cleft sentences, gender and number concord between subjects and verbs, etc.
Some languages, e.g. Chinese, don't have any of those syntax, when we want to express a meaning, we always add some words into the sentence.
For example, there is an English sentence like this:
Sentence 1: [I play football.]
If I want to change its meaning, to express I don't play football now, but I played football in an indefinite past time, I can change it into this:
Sentence 2: [I played football.]
In Chinese language, we don't change the tense of the verb "play" to achieve the above effect, our verbs are always in the same form, we add some words to express that the activity happened in an indefinite past time, like:
Sentence 3: [I play football in an indefinite past time.]
This is not grammatical in English, but Chinese language expresses meaning in this way. There are no verb inflections, only adding words with the wanted meaning.
So, being a Chinese, I have innate difficulty to understand the grammar of "hypothetical past". The following is my interpretation, I don't know whether it is correct.
A sentence containing an "if clause" as conditional adverbial in indicative mood can be like this:
Sentence 4: [If I have binoculars, I can see that comet clearly.]
This sentence has two implications:
(1) I'm stating the fact that condition "I have binoculars" can cause the result "I can see that comet clearly".
(2) Whether I have binoculars? I'm not saying. I don't know or I'm not telling you, at least just in this very sentence.
If I change the Sentence 4 into the grammar of hypothetical past, it will be like this:
Sentence 5: [If I had binoculars, I could see that comet clearly.]
This sentence also has two implications, different from the Sentence 4:
(1) I'm stating the fact that condition "I have binoculars now" can cause the result "I can see that comet clearly now".
(2) Whether I have binoculars now? I am saying clearly that I really don't have binoculars, it's sure, or I'm not totally certain but probably. In other words, the condition "I had binoculars" and the result "I could see that comet clearly" are only a pair of hypotheses of which they two have a deduction relationship. And these hypotheses are contradictory to the fact.
Chinese English learners know the verb in the "if clause", i.e. "had" is the past form of the verb "have", and the verb in the "main clause", i.e. "could" is the past form of the modal auxiliary verb "can", so many of them think that the Sentence 5 expresses whatever meaning in a past time.
In fact, the Sentence 5 doesn't express anything in a past time, its whole time frame is within now, the use of the past form of the verbs is just for expressing a hypothetical meaning and a violation to the fact.
In Chinese language, we don't speak in this way, we don't shift a verb's tense to the past to express a hypothetical meaning. Chinese verbs don't have inflections, so you can't shift their tense, when we want to express a hypothetical meaning, we add words: "..., but those are hypotheses and contradictory to the fact.".
Things get more complicated when I wanted to express a meaning not only being a hypothesis, but also being in a past time. I had learned that, English speakers use past forms of verbs to express a hypothetical meaning, what would be left for them to express a hypothetical meaning which is itself in the past?
Then I learned that they use perfective tense to shift even further back in time to express a hypothetical meaning in a past time, like this:
Sentence 6: [If I had had binoculars (yesterday night), I could have seen that comet clearly (yesterday night).]
In Chinese language, we don't speak in this way, we don't shift even further back in time to express a hypothetical meaning in a past time. Chinese verbs don't have inflections, so you can't shift their tense, when we want to express a hypothetical meaning in a past time, we add words: "..., those are assumed to happen in a past time but are only hypotheses and are contradictory to the fact.".
Some Chinese English learners stop learning here, they say: "English language is impossible to learn, I have tried my best to finally successfully have understood that in English you change a verb into its past form to express an action in a past time, now you have told me again that they don't use past forms of verbs to express a meaning in a past time but to express a meaning in a hypothetical now? This is what I can barely understand and you are even telling me now that they use an even much much more complicated structure to express a hypothetical meaning in a past time, and this hypothetical meaning in a past time was contradictory to the fact in the past time? How could I understand these? Bye bye English language."
Fortunately, I seem to have understood these. Congratulations to myself! But understanding these doesn't mean that I have understood English language, there are things even more tricky beyond my imagination.
Both Sentence 5 and Sentence 6 are in hypothetical past, the pair of "if clause" and "main clause" within each of these two sentences is either in the present or in the past. There can be a sentence whose "if clause" is in the past and whose "main clause" is in the present, or vice versa. So I can have:
Sentence 5: [If I had binoculars, I could see that comet clearly.]
Sentence 6: [If I had had binoculars (yesterday night), I could have seen that comet clearly (yesterday night).]
Sentence 7: [If I had had binoculars (yesterday night), I could retrieve it (now) and could use it to see that comet clearly.].
Sentence 8: [If I had binoculars (now), I could have seen that comet clearly (yesterday night).]
Many Chinese English learners can't understand the Sentence 8, they think, how could "now" determine the "past"? Past is past, they are fixed, whether I have binoculars or not now doesn't in any way influence whether I saw that comet clearly yesterday night. So the Sentence 8 is wrong.
I think in the Sentence 8, it is not that "if clause" determines "main clause", rather, "if clause" deduces "main clause", like you can observe chemical residuals to deduce what were the chemical reagents. That being said, the Sentence 8 means, if I don't have binoculars now, I probably didn't have it yesterday night, either, so I probably didn't see that comet clearly, on the opposite, if I have binoculars now, I might also have it yesterday night, so I probably did see that comet clearly, yet, the fact is that I really don't have it now.
I joined many Chinese English language learning groups, I found not many really understood the Sentence 8. I'm also not sure about my own interpretations. Did I make any mistake?
I think, this is a silly question but it should be an interesting problem among many language speakers whose mother tongues are not like English in being full of syntax structures. They and we (I mean we Chinese people) innately have difficulty of being accustomed to use a pair of "if clause" and "main clause" with each of them being in a neat structure and correlating to each other to express a subtle modal meaning.