Timeline for Is "would" the past future tense of "will" or just a modal verb?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 19, 2013 at 23:26 | comment | added | David M W Powers | would cannot be subjunctive - it is a common error to say "if I would do X" to mean "if I were to do X". Note however, "if he would do X" vs "if he were to do X" are quite different and only the latter is subjunctive - the first is the past tense of will in the sense of an act of will - the problem is he won't! | |
| Jan 20, 2011 at 19:13 | comment | added | lovespring | Yes, How could i know the 'would' is used as an modal auxiliary or just the past tense form of the 'will'? | |
| Jan 20, 2011 at 18:50 | comment | added | Robusto | @lovespring: I'm not sure what you're asking me? Where are you having problems with differentiating the various uses of would? | |
| Jan 19, 2011 at 15:17 | vote | accept | lovespring | ||
| Jan 19, 2011 at 15:17 | comment | added | lovespring | How could I different it from the past tense of "will"? because they two share the some form. | |
| Jan 19, 2011 at 14:54 | comment | added | Robusto | @lovespring: No, the "would" does not mean a "past future tense"; it can help in such constructions as "would have been" or "would have done" and so on. And yes, I'm aware what my avatar means. In Japanese it's yume, pronounced "yu-meh". | |
| Jan 19, 2011 at 14:47 | comment | added | lovespring | Does the "would" mean a past future tense? PS:Your logo means "dream" in CJK(Chinese/Japanese/Korean) :) | |
| Jan 19, 2011 at 14:00 | history | answered | Robusto | CC BY-SA 2.5 |