present tense usage in the if clause

[rubycrystal]

Hi Everyone, I just joined this forum today when the Japanese English teacher I worked with threw me a tough grammar question.

She gave me these examples and asked why native speakers usually say A instead of B.
A: If it is sunny tomorrow, I'll go out.

B: If it'll be sunny tomorrow, I'll go out.

She wonders why the present tense is used in the if clause when it's obviously referring to the future.

All I could come up with is that going to be seems to be more appropriate there. For example... If it's going to be sunny tomorrow, I'll go out. Yet, the going to be can just be left out.

Aaah, it's rather confusing to me, so please give me any suggestions you may have.

Thanks
Ruby

[JuanTwoThree]

I'll go to the shops when/before/after/until/ (not) unless/while/as long as/if the sun shines.

The tense of "if" here is no different from that of the other options. In other words "if" is just a time clause for pessimists.

So perhaps your question should be "Why is the tense of subordinate clauses usually present?"

"I'll buy a drink for the first person who arrives"

[Stephen Jones]

Well, first you can point out that both forms ('if' + present simple & if + future) are used in neighbouring related languages.

Then point out that the distinction in the two main Engolish tenses is between the Past and the non-Past tenses, not between the Present and the Past. The Present Simple is the unmarked (default form) and is used for the non-Past. As the future is non-past there is no reason for the Present Simple not to be used for a future event in subordinate clauses.

Then point out that English does not have a future tense; only a present and a past tense. "Will' is a modal auxiliary, and although it has come to fulfill many of the functions of a simple present, it is not the same thing. In the main clauses of the sentence you are referring to we are making a prediction (I'll go out) and this is one of the uses of 'will', just as making a promise (I'll buy them a drink) as in Juan's example is another.

Hopefully, a combination of mine and Juan's examples will suitably impress him.

[sonya]

I think that's just the way if clauses are done. I don't think there's an inherent "reason" for this, because if clauses can be expressed differently, and in different tenses, in other languages; but this if clause formation is really common in Indoeuropean languages.

if pres, then future
if past, then conditional (ie: If it was sunny, I would be at the beach right now).
if past perfect, then past conditional (ie: If it had been sunny, I would have been at the beach yesterday).

"If it is going to be" is still in the present (present progressive), but using "to go" expresses something in the near future.. may be a semantic thing, but I'm pretty sure it's not a future tense.

for example:
If it is raining tomorrow, I will go out
If it rains tomorrow, I will go out

but:
*?If it will rain tomorrow, I will go out
*If it will be rainy tomorrow, I will go out
*If it will go rain tomorrow, I will go out

hope this helps

[abufletcher]

if past, then conditional (ie: If it was sunny, I would be at the beach right now).

Shouldn't that properly be: "If conditional, then conditional"?

e.g. "If it WERE sunny, I would be at the beach right now."


[/quote]if past perfect, then past conditional (ie: If it had been sunny, I would have been at the beach yesterday).[/quote]

Ditto. There just happens to have been a superficial "falling together" past forms and conditional forms in English. German uses conditional forms in these positions. Or to say this another way "had been" IS the conditional (subjunctive) form in English. And there's no use arguing that since we no longer have a separate form we're not actually using the conditional here. If that were true, how do you deal with verbs like cut-cut-cut?



Should th

[sonya]

no.. the conditional is not in the subjunctive mood, so it doesn't seem to be if conditional then conditional.
*If it would be sunny, I would go to the beach.

Anyway, I don't entirely follow you. I didn't discuss mood, only tense. However, you make a good point. It is grammatical to form the if - then construction with the subjunctive. In Modern English, it's equally grammatical to use the indicative and say, "If it was," and people do all the time.

[abufletcher]

no.. the conditional is not in the subjunctive mood, so it doesn't seem to be if conditional then conditional.
*If it would be sunny, I would go to the beach.

Anyway, I don't entirely follow you. I didn't discuss mood, only tense. However, you make a good point. It is grammatical to form the if - then construction with the subjunctive. In Modern English, it's equally grammatical to use the indicative and say, "If it was," and people do all the time.

Yes, I've long since lost the ability to correctly label such things!

As far as whether "if it was" is "indicative" I suppose that depends entirely what people who actually use English imagine it to be rather than whatever scholars (like you and I) might think. To "them" I'm sure there is no difference whatsoever between the "were" and "was" -- it's just that "I were started to sound awkward to them (like not wanting to form the PP of drink 'cause it sounds like the adjective).

As you can tell, I'm not very interested in descriptivist linguistics. I prefer a participants view of language/interaction.

[Stephen Jones]

I suggest abu you look again at my post in this thread.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 7ce63e23ec
You will only have the subjunctive for a hypothetical condition, and not for an open one.

I would still be wary of the usefulness of the concept of the subjunctive here. In British English we could more or less say the past subjunctive is fossilized, and I doubt if it is far off from that in American English.

I am a little suspicious of what I call the snapshot view of English grammar, where the state of play at a particular time is taken as being fixed ex tempore, but I think we can ignore the subjunctive origin of the past simple to describe a hypothetical situation in the present. After all distancing in other fields than time is a common use of the past tense.

[JuanTwoThree]

I wouldn't mourn the passing of the last visible vestiges of a past subjunctive.

In Old English there was no difference between past simple and past subjunctive in weak/regular verbs. So even then they relied on context and whatever the equivalent of "would" in the main clause was. Strong verbs then came into line with weak verbs.

"Be" of course resisted for longer,

"If thou werst" was different from "If thou wast" in Early Modern English:

"If thou werst rich, what wouldst thou do?"

"If thou wast at the party I saw thee not!"

So English speakers have always had to keep their antennae out to distinguish between realis and irrealis.

Which doesn't answer the question about present in subordinate clauses.

Unless it's a remnant of present subjunctive:

"Do it before he comes" might have once been "before he come" .

It'd be subjunctive in other languages.

Google "until he be" and you can see what I mean, even "hanged.... until he be dead" at the end of the 19th century. The King James' Bible is full of "if he be" plus will/shall.

That would be my guess as to why these present simples abound in these clauses, they used to be present subjunctive. And it looks as if the past subjunctive is going the same way.

[abufletcher]

You will only have the subjunctive for a hypothetical condition, and not for an open one.

My point here was that there is no meaning difference whatsoever for the people actually out there in the world using English between:

"If it was sunny, I'd be at the beach right now."

and

"If it were sunny, I'd be at the beach right now."

Was is just the "new were" -- as it were! Both express a hypothetical (unreal) condition. Attempts to describe one as "subjunctive" and the other as "indicative" are pointless.

IHMO this distinction between "was" and "were" has nothing whatsoever to do with grammar or meaning but is simply an instance of informal vs. formal speech. I'd wager that most educated speakers of at least American English (but probably also British English) use BOTH forms varying them with the social context.

Now of course this is a totally different thing from the following which (if suitably contextualized) can be hearable as a statement about historical habits.

"I went to the beach all the time when I was in high school. If it was sunny, I'd be at the beach."

Interesting how the use of "right now" transforms the mood of the verb!