I thought my wife might be asleep

[navi tasan]

1. When I entered the house, I tried to make as little noise as possible because it was possible that my wife was asleep. I found out that as a matter of fact, she was indeed asleep.

2. When I entered the house, I tried to make as little noise as possible because I thought my wife might be asleep. I found out that as a matter of fact, she was indeed asleep.

3. When I entered the house, I tried to make as little noise as possible because my wife might be asleep. I found out that as a matter of fact, she was indeed asleep.

I think '1' and '2' are correct, but '3' isn't. Would you agree with that assessment?

 

[5jj]

All three are grammatical.

'... as a matter of fact' is redundant in all three.

 

[navi tasan]

Thank you very much, 5jj,

How about this one?

4. When I entered the house, I tried to make as little noise as possible because my wife could be asleep. I found out that she was indeed asleep.

 

[Annabel Lee]

3. When I entered the house, I tried to make as little noise as possible because my wife might be asleep. I found out that as a matter of fact, she was indeed asleep.

I'd find (3) more natural if "for all I knew" were parenthetically inserted between commas at the start of the "because"-clause:

3a. When I entered the house, I tried to make as little noise as possible because, for all I knew, my wife might be asleep.​

​

This even allows for fronting of the "because"-clause, which would be extremely awkward without that addition:

3b. ? Because my wife might be asleep, I tried to make as little noise as possible when I entered the house.​

3c. Because, for all I knew, my wife might be asleep, I tried to make as little noise as possible when I entered the house.​

(3b) would seem illogically to suggest that the speaker tried to do something in the past because of how his wife might be right now (at the time of speech).