Teacher Discussion Forums

I would have arrived earlier if there hadn't been a traffic jam.

I know that with the perfect aspect the speaker somehow links or stablishes any connection between 2 events in 2 distinct points in time, how can I explain this in the condition given above?

José

PS: ATTENTION... this post is highly infected with Lewis's ideas hehehehe

If you want to be Lewisian about it ,the two events/points would be:

1) The speaker stuck in the traffic jam, and
2) The speaker's arrival - not sure whether it's the (real) late arrival or the (hypothetical) earlier one but does that really matter?