Week 5

 

Forming Conditional Clauses

These are useful for expressing causal relationships and making predictions about future possibilities, as well as describing general truths or facts, and usually use if/then structures (if, even if, unless, if not, etc.).

Real                                                    vs.                                        Unreal

Describe general truths/facts or                            Describe situations that are currently

repeated situations/habits                                      unreal/untrue with imagined results

Present tense in both clauses                                 If + past tense + then + modal + base verb

(even if = condition irrelevant)                                                

Predict possible future for likely                           Describe situations in the past unreal or

results; also used for hypotheses                           untrue and imagine results

If + present tense + then + future tense                If + past perfect tense + then +

modal + have/has + past participle

Tips:

·        Use a comma after conditional clause

·        Use subjunctive “were” for unreal conditionals

·        Subject of both clauses must agree

·        Use modals: will/can/may for real conditionals, would/could/might for unreal conditionals