Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[daycanlee]

Greetings,

I have a question that I hope you guys could help me with. I think the modal verb "would" has the meaning of "is/am/are willing to", and when "would" is used in this form, "would" becomes tenseless. For example:
i) Billy would help you if you just admit to him that you are wrong and give him back his ring.
ii) I wouldn't take the bait even if they increase the reward to five thousand dollars.
iii) Would you be willing trade if they lower their price bar?

From sentence iii) we could see that would is used as a polite question. My answer to sentence iii) would be:
Answeriii)"I would be willing to trade if the their price bar is lowered."
if usage of "would" is correct in Answeriii), then i) and ii) must also be correct because both of them have the same question form of "Would Billy help......?", "Would you take the bait......?"

However, most online resources would use "will" for the above sentences, or change any imaginary cases to 2nd or 3rd conditionals. Why can't they just admit that would has a tenseless form to describe a person's behavior and the modal verb "would", just like "could", is not bound to past tense of "will"? Following are more examples to illustrate my point:

ex.1) She would do anything to get what she wants to be an anchor.
ex.2) Those raiders would hunt you down till the end of the world if you ever mess with them.
ex.3) People would buy this new invention if the price is right.

[pugachevV]

These are all examples of the conditional mood.
This subject is covered in great detail by Dennis Oliver on the ESL Cafe web site.
At the ESL Cafe home page, go to Grammar Lessons in the purple panel on the left hand side under Stuff for Students. There you will find all you need to know about the conditional mood and many other grammar subjects.