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When writing of past conversations and perspectives, is it correct to use 'will' to reference a possibility that did happen (and might still be relevant), followed by 'would' for a possibility that didn't?

At that meeting, John said that the company will secure the events, and that we would sign the agreement by the end the year.

In this example, the company later secured the events (at least some of them by the date of the sentence), but the people at the meeting didn't sign the agreement.

Alternatively, is it correct to use 'would' in both?

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    No. Would is employed in both clauses as a simple past representing John's past declaration employing will; "Hypotheticality" did not enter into his utterance.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Jul 16, 2015 at 17:25
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    No, you can't use will instead of would in your context to differentiate between things that did happen in the past and those that didn't. You can only use it to identify things that haven't yet happened at time of reporting (but which probably will, in the fullness of time).
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jul 16, 2015 at 17:26

2 Answers 2

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The example is reported (indirect) speech. In order to better understand why "will" cannot be used, let's start with:

At the meeting, John said: "The company will secure the events, and we will sign the agreement by the end the year." - Direct speech

At the meeting, John said that we would secure the events, and (that) we would sign the agreement by the end of the year. - Reported speech

Note: The question of whether something actually happened or not is irrelevant, the reason being, while talking about what happened or what was said, the focus is only upon reporting it, exactly in the same tense as it happened.

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It should be "would" in both instances because you need the past subjunctive tense.

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  • Why? Isn't the "subjunctive" basically obsolete now?
    – curiousdannii
    Commented Jul 17, 2015 at 0:22
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    @curiousdannii No, it isn’t, although this answer is wrong for other reasons than that. It’s a simple matter of backshifting.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Jul 17, 2015 at 0:32
  • @tchrist I'm just hating on the subjunctive ;) English may have a subjunctive construction but it doesn't have a tense/mood.
    – curiousdannii
    Commented Jul 17, 2015 at 0:35

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