amrknInMoscow
Member
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2011
- Member Type
- English Teacher
- Native Language
- English
- Home Country
- United States
- Current Location
- Russian Federation
Hello All,
I had emailed some students about a planned outing and days later, one of my students suggested that I had made a syntax error for a conditional statement that I made. The statement made was:
If anyone else decides to make a surprise appearance, I’m not sure if we’ll be able to seat them.
His attention was drawn to the use of "if" within the main clause. Though looking deeply into my grammar bible and Googling my head off, I couldn't find any similar sentence constructs which would support the way that I wrote it. And looking back, I can now see alternatives for how I could have written it (e.g. substituting "if" with "that").
Still, when I read my original variant back to myself, I can hear this as being a valid sentence. Perhaps I'm merely confusing the sloppy way with which people have muddled up the speech, but conditional rules aside, this sounds okay to me.
I would love to hear another take on this from others.
David
I had emailed some students about a planned outing and days later, one of my students suggested that I had made a syntax error for a conditional statement that I made. The statement made was:
If anyone else decides to make a surprise appearance, I’m not sure if we’ll be able to seat them.
His attention was drawn to the use of "if" within the main clause. Though looking deeply into my grammar bible and Googling my head off, I couldn't find any similar sentence constructs which would support the way that I wrote it. And looking back, I can now see alternatives for how I could have written it (e.g. substituting "if" with "that").
Still, when I read my original variant back to myself, I can hear this as being a valid sentence. Perhaps I'm merely confusing the sloppy way with which people have muddled up the speech, but conditional rules aside, this sounds okay to me.
I would love to hear another take on this from others.
David