The conditional perfect is a grammatical construction that combines the

conditional mood The conditional mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood used in conditional sentences to express a proposition whose validity is dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual. It may refer to a distinct verb form that expresses the condit ...

with

perfect aspect The perfect tense or aspect ( abbreviated or ) is a verb form that indicates that an action or circumstance occurred earlier than the time under consideration, often focusing attention on the resulting state rather than on the occurrence itself. ...

. A typical example is the English ''would have written''.Gail Stein, ''Webster's New World Spanish Grammar Handbook'', John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Part VII. The conditional perfect is used to refer to a hypothetical, usually counterfactual, event or circumstance placed in the past, contingent on some other circumstance (again normally counterfactual, and also usually placed in the past). Like the present conditional (a form like ''would write''), the conditional perfect typically appears in the ''apodosis'' (the main clause, expressing the consequent) in a

conditional sentence Conditional sentences are natural language sentences that express that one thing is contingent on something else, e.g. "If it rains, the picnic will be cancelled." They are so called because the impact of the main clause of the sentence is ''con ...

English

In English, the conditional perfect is formed using ''would have'' together with the

past participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...

of the main verb. The auxiliary ''would'' marks the

(it is occasionally replaced by ''should'' in the first person; see ''shall'' and ''will''), while the auxiliary ''have'' (used in combination with the past participle) marks the

(prior occurrence of the event in question). The conditional perfect is used chiefly in the main clause (apodosis) of "third conditional" (or sometimes "mixed conditional") sentences, as described under

English conditional sentences Prototypical conditional sentences in English are those of the form ''"If X, then Y".'' The clause ''X'' is referred to as the ''antecedent'' (or ''protasis''), while the clause ''Y'' is called the ''consequent'' (or ''apodosis''). A conditional ...

. Examples: * You would have got en'' more money if you had worked harder. * If we had run faster, we would have arrived earlier. * If I were a woman, I would have entered the contest. It is also possible for the auxiliary ''would'' to be replaced by the modals ''should'', ''could'' or ''might'' to express appropriate modality in addition to conditionality. Sometimes, in (chiefly American English) informal speech, the ''would have'' construction appears in the ''if''-clause as well ("If we would have run faster, we would have arrived earlier"), but this is considered incorrect in formal speech and writing (see ). English also has a conditional perfect progressive (''would have been writing''). For more details on the usage of this and of the ordinary conditional perfect, see the relevant sections of the article

Uses of English verb forms This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes: * Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went'' * Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone'' * Combinations of s ...

Other languages

French expresses past

counterfactual conditional Counterfactual conditionals (also ''subjunctive'' or ''X-marked'') are conditional sentences which discuss what would have been true under different circumstances, e.g. "If Peter believed in ghosts, he would be afraid to be here." Counterfactua ...

sentences in exactly the same way as English does: the ''if'' clause uses the ''had'' + past participle (

pluperfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...

) form, while the ''then'' clause uses the ''would have'' + past participle form, where the equivalent of ''would have'' is the conditional of the auxiliary (''avoir'' or ''être'') used in all perfect constructions for the verb in question. Example: * ''Si on l'avait su luperfect indicative on aurait pu onditional perfectl'empêcher.'' :"If we had known it luperfect subjunctive we would have been able onditional perfectto prevent it."

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

forms the conditional perfect on similar principles, e.g. ''yo te habría dicho todo'' ("I would have told you everything").

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

has a similar tense to the English one, formed with ''zou''/''zouden'', the past tense of ''zullen'', the auxiliary of the future tenses, e.g. ''ik zou je alles gezegd hebben'' ("I would have told you everything"). In Dutch grammar it is called the "perfect past future tense", emphasizing that it also has future-in-past properties. For certain other languages, see

References

{{reflist Grammatical tenses Conditionals in linguistics Linguistic modality Semantics es:Condicional perfecto

English

Other languages

See also

References