Managing Verb Tenses in a Statement with Multiple Clauses

Question

Since English is not my first language, I often struggle with verb tenses when the statement involves multiple clauses. The advice to stay consistent sometimes doesn't work. For example:

Because John supervised the group project, it was his responsibility that I feel confident with the result.

John and his group worked on the project in the past. On the other hand, I'm following up on their work now. Hence, I wrote "... that I feel confident." But if I wrote "... that I felt confident," it would appear that my follow-up took place in the past as well.

I'd appreciate if someone can advice me how to think about such a situation. Thanks!

Answer 1

This is not a tensed usage, but an untensed one:

1. Because John supervised the group project, it was his responsibility that I feel confident with the result.

Swap your first- and third-person usages and this becomes obvious:

2. Because I supervised the group project, it was my responsibility that John feel confident with the result.

Now it’s obvious that feel is an untensed verb; otherwise it would have been feels. These used to be in the present-subjunctive back when we had a distinct inflection for that in English. It’s sometimes still called a mandative subjunctive construction these days, but it’s simply a bare infinitive, not a finite form.

It would be less stuffy to write that out this way:

3. Because I supervised the group project, it was my responsibility for John to feel confident with the result.

Which in your original case would be:

4. Because John supervised the group project, it was his responsibility for me to feel confident with the result.

There is no "tense conflict" here in any of these because there is exactly one and only one tensed verb in all four cases. The untensed ones do not count.