Timeline for How do I correctly determine realis vs irrealis or indicative vs subjunctive in this sentence?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
20 events
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| Jan 1 at 4:14 | history | edited | tchrist♦ |
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| Jan 1 at 4:14 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | Related. @PhilSweet I see you were here, too. :) | |
| Dec 20, 2016 at 6:55 | comment | added | likethesky | Hi @Phil Sweet ~ Really I was just trying to figure out whether to use was or were here, but in doing so after a bit of searching here and on other blog posts it seemed to come down to subjunctive (what my other offline editor's opinion was saying to me) as well as this new thing I'd never heard of: irrealis (vs realis). So, the truth: I don't know which axes those four fall on--that's part of my comments on Araucaria's answer below--asking how those four (5) terms: realis / irrealis and subjunctive / indicative (and I suppose now a fifth: interrogative) are related. Thanks for asking. | |
| Dec 20, 2016 at 6:40 | vote | accept | likethesky | ||
| Dec 20, 2016 at 6:33 | history | edited | likethesky | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Minor typo
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| Dec 19, 2016 at 19:58 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | @sumelic That answer is utterly incorrect!! Read Clare's comments here ... | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 19:43 | comment | added | Phil Sweet | I see was/were as a backshifted verb. (related: english.stackexchange.com/questions/204893/…), and as such, expect to often see were and was used interchangeably. | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 19:18 | comment | added | Phil Sweet | Also related english.stackexchange.com/questions/148710/…. The second answer gives an example from CGEL that is very close to the OP's. | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 18:19 | comment | added | Phil Sweet | OP, what are you asking? Are you trying to distinguish the pair realis/irrealis from the pair indicative/subjunctive? Or are you trying to distinguish irrealis/subjunctive from realis/indicative? | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 17:46 | comment | added | Phil Sweet | @Clare Whether it be conditional or not, whether doesn't obviate the subjunctive. | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 13:00 | answer | added | Araucaria - Him | timeline score: 3 | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 5:09 | comment | added | Arm the good guys in America | Even if it was/were irrealis, like in this sentence, you could use was in all but formal writing, especially in British English. In general, the only time was sounds horrible (to many) is in If I was you. (I'd say If I were you...) | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 2:46 | comment | added | herisson | Related: english.stackexchange.com/a/6699/77227 I'm reluctant to recommend reading that whole page, since I think some of the answers are wrong, but that particular answer seems correct to me. | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 2:15 | comment | added | likethesky | Thanks again. I believe you make clear that it's all in the realm of the real, regardless of whether it's imagined or not. In other words, they were really imagining, it's not a thought experiment where they were imagining that they could have imagined that. I've updated my question to clarify it, I believe! | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 2:14 | history | edited | likethesky | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Clarify question
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| Dec 19, 2016 at 2:11 | comment | added | Arm the good guys in America | Everything you describe is talking is in the realm of the real. The speaker is sarcastically "not sure" the human is a human, so use was. | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 2:04 | comment | added | likethesky |
Thanks Clare. The speaker is in a situation with an actual human (him, in this case, along with others, though I don't think that it matters that there are others present in addition to him), so the speaker clearly knows that he is not a literally a cartoon, but what they're implying is that his behavior is such that they are sarcastically 'staring at him' to see if he might be a cartoon (even though they know he is not). Does that change anything?
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| Dec 19, 2016 at 2:00 | comment | added | Arm the good guys in America | If here is a synonym of whether. There's nothing conditional about it. Use was. | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 1:57 | history | edited | likethesky | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 3 characters in body
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| Dec 19, 2016 at 1:51 | history | asked | likethesky | CC BY-SA 3.0 |