Could/Would in the past tense

Yeah, sometimes they confuse me, too. But the way I understand this:

Sage said:

Aren't "would" & "could" the past tense version of "will" & "can"?

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I believe so.

Now, the only instance I've found where she's actually made the change, it's been to add the word "have" after "could" or "would." I think that's right if the present tense is "would" or "could" so that:

I wish I could love him.

becomes:

I wished I could have loved him.

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This one is tricky. It's subjunctive mood, and they have different meanings. "I wish I could love him" means you don't love him at all, and wish that somehow you could.

"I wished I could have loved him" just looks weird to me. You may be thinking "I could have loved him if he were nicer to me." I think it should be "I wished I could love him."

"I wished I could have loved him," I think, means "I could have loved him, but I didn't, and now I regret it because he's dead..." which is very different in meaning than "I wished I could love him." It still feels weird to me... it's probably better this way: "I wished I had loved him."

These make more sense:

I could have loved her but she was mean to me.
I would have let her go except she kept calling.

The follow two sentences have different meanings:

I knew I could have done that but I was too busy.
I knew I could do that but I didn't know any better.


Yeah, the "could have" and "would have" get to me, too.

If you give us specific examples, maybe we can give you better opinions.

I've been having trouble with the same stuff. I'm almost done the first draft of my WIP right now, but everytime I write the words "could have" or "would have" I look back at it and hate the way it looks/sounds.

I'm leaving it for now, just trying to reduce my usage of it, knowing that I'll go back and change it later anyway.

I could have stopped sooner, if only I would have recognized how it sounded.

The Scip said:

I could have stopped sooner, if only I would have recognized how it sounded.

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Um... It should have been:

I could have stopped sooner if only I had recognized how it sounded.

Sage said:

If I would let myself, I could have fallen for him very easily.

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This one should read: If I had let myself, I could have fallen for him very easily.

The word if is never followed by the conditional.

I think the confusion is coming from the fact that "would" in the present is a sign of the conditional or a hyper-polite indication of willingness. In the past, it's the past form of "will".

Examples:
Present conditional: I wouldn't do that if I were you.
Willingness: If you would care to follow me, I'll take you to the president's office. (Hard to imagine this one in anything but the second person.)
Past of will: He said he would come in a few minutes.

Hope this helps a little without contributing to further confusion.

Sage said:

If I let myself, I could have fallen for him very easily.

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You're mixing your tenses. "If I let myself" is in the present or future tense. "I could have fallen" is in the past.

Past tense: "Had I let myself, I could have fallen for him very easily." Or: "If I'd have let myself...."

If you say "If I let myself, I could fall for him very easily" you are no longer in past tense.

I will try:

Sage said:

If there had been a live band, the first place I'd check out would be the stage.

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If there had been a live band, the first place I checked would have been the stage.

He stuck his hand through my belly, where my navel would be if I were human-born. (I think this one is right to be "would have been")

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He stuck his hand through my belly, where my navel would have been if I were human-born.

Hell, it could have been more than a warning shot, for all the harm it would do him.

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Hell, it could have been more than a warning short, for all the harm it would have done to him.

If I would let myself, I could have fallen for him very easily.

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I had let myself, I could have fallen for him easily.

Hi Sage,

I've been following this with some interest, because I have a bit of an unhealthy grammar obsession, and a particular fascination with the subjunctive (I know, I'm weird ).

Anyway, I was going to go into a little deconstruction of your example, but Sandi says it better than I would have.

As for Maestro's corrections: exactly. What's happening with these is, you've started them in past tense, then moved to future mid-sentence, when I think you really want everything to stay in past tense. The flip-flop of this is the "If I let myself," example, which, if I'm reading it right, starts in present and moves to past, when you want it to say that this is a situation the narrator is currently facing. Am I understanding this? I think I just managed to confuse myself

Sage said:

But what do you do when your character in the past is musing about the future?

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Then it's a straight "would" or "could."

He thought about it, and hoped he could one day achieve the impossible.

She would do it even if her family might disown her.

I would, if I could, but I didn't think I should. I still might, but I probably wouldn't.

Sage said:

But what do you do when your character in the past is musing about the future?

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It would depend a lot on the POV and the actual musing, but maybe something like, "When I imagined life after [whatever], I pictured a succession of [random adjective] days."

Or, "She wondered where he would be in three months' time and if he would still think of her."

Is this what you're talking about?

Well, if you make everything into present tense, the sentence becomes:

If I will let myself, I could fall for him very easily.



It doesn't make sense why you would say "If I will let myself," subjunctive or not. Instead, you would say, "If I let myself..." The "would" just don't fit the "if" clause.

Thus the correct form in past tense/subjunctive should be:

"If I had let myself, I could have fallen with him easily."
or

"I couldn't let myself fall in love with him."

maestrowork said:

Well, if you make everything into present tense, the sentence becomes:

If I will let myself, I could fall for him very easily.



It doesn't make sense why you would say "If I will let myself," subjunctive or not. Instead, you would say, "If I let myself..." The "would" just don't fit the "if" clause.

Thus the correct form in past tense/subjunctive should be:

"If I had let myself, I could have fallen with him easily."
or

"I couldn't let myself fall in love with him."

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It not only doesn't make sense to say it, it's just plain bad grammar. In a conditional sentence, if is never followed by a future tense.

Sage said:

So I still don't get why "If I would let myself..." is wrong.

I'm so confused. How can I identify where I switch to the future tense? & if she's thinking about future possibilities, what's the rule? I'm also confused on the first one, 'cuz to me "I checked" sounds like she did check, but she didn't. She just would have.

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It's redundant, Sage. Would is very clumsy after if because it looks like a conditional where it shouldn't be. The only justification is using it as a potential willingness, but let myself already pretty well covers that. Besides, whenever a sentence is a bit clumsy or unclear, even if it is technically correct or doable, it's always a good choice to look for a clearer version. Not all difficulties need to be resolved; sometimes they can just be neatly sidestepped.

Sage said:

Actually, Judg, that does help, but I think it helps in a way you didn't mean it to.

I think the "would" needs to be dropped altogether in that case.

"had" suggests that she's contemplating a choice she had in the past, but what she's doing is thinking about a future possibility. So perhaps it should be:

If I let myself, I could have fallen for him very easily.

Hmmm, I still seem to want the "would" in there. It is a willingness issue.

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I'm a little nonplussed to see that nobody has made the obvious correction. If it's a future possibility, it should read: If I let myself, I could fall for him very easily. Why are you trying to stick a past tense in the future?

Review of conditional sentences

OK, quick review of conditional sentences.

For a real condition, i.e. one in the future that could conceivably happen:

If clause with the verb in the present tense, and the main clause in the future tense. The clauses can be in any order.

Examples:
If you come to the party, you will meet all my friends. (It is still possible that you come.)
If I let myself (this one is a wee bit confusing, because let is the same in all tenses), I will fall in love with him. (I'm toying with the idea of letting myself.)
I will look into it, if he is interested. (Maybe he is, maybe he isn't.)


For an unreal condition, i.e. one that ain't gonna happen:

If clause with the verb in the subjunctive (which to keep things confusing, usually looks like the simple past, except in the third person singular), and the main clause in the conditional.
If you came to the party, you would meet all my friends. (You've made it clear you don't intend to come. This might be a last-ditch attempt to persuade you, but I'm not too hopeful.)
If I let myself, I would (or could) fall in love with him. (But I intend to block that possibility.)
I would look into it, if he were interested. (Ha! Finally an example where the subjunctive is visible! And I obviously don't believe he's interested.)

For a past unreal condition, i.e. one that never did realize itself:

If clause with the verb in the past subjunctive (which looks exactly like the past anyway...), and the main clause in the past conditional.

If you had come to the party, you would have met all my friends. (But you didn't, so it's too late.)
If I had let myself, I could have fallen in love with him. (But I did neither.)
I would have looked into it, if he had been interested.


Any other constructs are wrong. Until someone comes along and pulls up something I haven't thought of.

I've already cited one: the hyper-polite functionary.

If you would care to follow me (or If you will/would follow me), we can begin our tour.

This breaks the rules for the conditional because it isn't really a conditional. The speaker would be shocked out of her uniform if anyone declined. It's formulaic, and more than a wee bit ugly, in my insufficiently humble opinion. But people say it, and like most cases when a rule is twisted out of shape, there is a recognizable reason. It it also used only in a very narrow context.

Chances are very good that I've left something else out, but I can't think of anything else off the top of my head.

Sage said:

I just have one more question. What about a real condition (from the POV character's perspective it is a real possibility it could happen), in a novel set in the past tense?

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Trying to wrap my head around that one. An example would be appreciated. For the character, she is in the present tense and would express herself accordingly. If she's looking back, it's an unreal past condition, assuming it didn't happen. If it did happen, then it's just past.

And those last two sentences illustrate another kind of conditional sentence, a real condition in the present, where we're not talking about what could happen in the future, but what the present possibilities are. In this case, all verbs are present.

You see, I knew I forgot something.

I would look into it, if he was interested.

This is a form that would only appear in a narrative, it seems to me. I guess it's one more to add to the list: a past real conditional.

You see, there's always one more thing...

Right. It doesn't have to be subjunctive with "if." In this case it's a simple "if he was interested, I would look into it."

It is clumsy in past tense, because it already happened -- the sense of "future" is just weird; it makes more sense in present tense. But grammatically, it's the right way to do it. Logically, I think it would make sense if it's from the POV:

"He thought he would call her if she was interested."

In that example, I would say:

I would have looked into it, had he been interested.

"Would" by itself is not necessarily in past tense. You do need "have" and as it's an auxiliary verb, you need to have "looked" in the past tense. The word you can lose is "if".