[Grammar] Mixed conditionals

sky3120 · Oct 9, 2012

A: There is no such thing as time travel.

B: Well, there is.

A: No, there is not. Because if there were, a class-one senior agent such as myself would have been aware of it, wouldn't he have?

This is the dialogue of a movie and I was wondering if the structure of "Because if there were, a class-one senior agent such as myself would have been aware of it" is possible in daily conversations or only in the movie context, it was used peculiarly?

Thank you so much as usual for your time and help.

Raymott · Oct 9, 2012

sky3120 said:
A: There is no such thing as time travel.

B: Well, there is.

A: No, there is not. Because if there were, a class-one senior agent such as myself would have been aware of it, wouldn't he have?

This is the dialogue of a movie and I was wondering if the structure of "Because if there were, a class-one senior agent such as myself would have been aware of it" is possible in daily conversations or only in the movie context, it was used peculiarly?

Thank you so much as usual for your time and help.

It's normal English.

sky3120 · Oct 9, 2012

"If there were time travel, we would be aware of it."

"If there had been time travel, we would have been aware of it."

They are grammatically correct, aren't they? Or is there a special case for "there is" structure here? Thank you so much.

Raymott · Oct 9, 2012

sky3120 said:
"If there were time travel, we would be aware of it."

"If there had been time travel, we would have been aware of it."

They are grammatically correct, aren't they? Or is there a special case for "there is" structure here? Thank you so much.

Yes, they are correct.

sky3120 · Oct 9, 2012

Thank you so much, but I am a little bit confused now because you say that the structure of "If there were, a class-one senior agent such as myself would have been aware of it" is okay and it is normal English. I think we should choose one structure
between the two examples above. What do you think? Thank you and I am sorry for taking your time a lot.

Raymott · Oct 9, 2012

sky3120 said:
Thank you so much, but I am a little bit confused now because you say that the structure of "If there were, a class-one senior agent such as myself would have been aware of it" is okay and it is normal English. I think we should choose one structure
between the two examples above. What do you think? Thank you and I am sorry for taking your time a lot.

I would have used "would be" in your example in your first post rather than "would have been".
"If there were time travel, I would be aware of it." But the agent might be referring to a time in the past, eg. "when I was in the service", in which case "would have been" might be preferable.
Is that what you mean?

Tdol · Oct 9, 2012

If there had been a rule, a class-one senior agent such as myself would have been aware of it. = If the rule existed in the past
If there were a rule, a class-one senior agent such as myself would have been aware of it. = this mixes the conditionals- the first part implies that the rule still exists (and did in the past) and the second that the person would have been informed in the past

Barb_D · Oct 9, 2012

Men In Black III.
Remember that dialogue is written for characters to speak, and that characters in a movie, like people in real life, do not sit down and diagram their sentences with a careful analysis of case, tense, and voice. Real people speak spontaneously. A believable actor makes his character sounds like he is speaking spontaneously and a skilled script writer writes dialogue that sounds spontaneous.

One of the reasons that non-native-speakers' stories sound so wrong is that they use proper grammar for all the dialogue. (Or they go the other way and speak in so much slang and idiom that they are not credible that way either.)

sky3120 · Oct 10, 2012

I am really impressed with great answers from great people here and I am weeping now with happiness. Thank you;-)

"characters in a movie, like people in real life, do not sit down and diagram their sentences with a careful analysis of case, tense, and voice."

Although I think I got it right, I would like to make sure the meaning of the sentence is that people in real life do sit down and diagram their sentences...or not.

Sometimes the usage of like makes me so confused, so what did you mean by it? Thank you so much for your help and time.

Barb_D · Oct 10, 2012

Neither real-life people NOR characters in movies do this.

sky3120 · Oct 10, 2012

Thank you, and if there are no commas, can it possibly mean people in real life do sit and diagram...or regardless of commas, should we understand the meaning in context?

Rover_KE · Oct 10, 2012

sky3120 said:
Thank you, and if there are no commas, can it possibly mean people in real life do sit and diagram... No
or regardless of commas, should we understand the meaning in context? Yes.

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[Grammar] Mixed conditionals

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