If she came home late last night, she won't be on time for work today

[Nonverbis]

Upstream Proficiency by Virginia Evans and Jenny Dooley

Could you have a look at the attached screenshots.

Type 2 is an unreal condition about present.

But in the mixed conditionals example it is not about present.
Because it is about last night.

Could you comment on what happens in the example of mixed conditionals.

As far as I understand it, the speaker just doesn't know what really happened last night and whether she came home late or not.

And it is a conditionals that is used to express a real situation but reflects just lacks of information. But this doesn't look like type 2 because it is real.

 

[5jj]

If she came home late last night, she won't be on time for work today.

Depending on context. the if- clause could mean:

1. If she came home late last night - and I don't know whether she did, ...
2. If she came home late last night - and I accept that she did. ...

With both meanings, the second clause means:

I present her not being on time for work as a certainty.

I don't think it helps to try to fit these patterns into the the 'standard first, second, third, zero or mixed types.

 

[Nonverbis]

But a situation when there is lack of information about the past is pretty common.

Any investigations: if the criminal did that, then let's look for him there.

If you have lost something and try to find it:
If I left it in the shop, then it may still be lying there.

So, I'm pretty sure that we use this construction in everyday life very often. Maybe even every day.

Why grammarians don't describe it in texbooks?

And as for this textbook, this seems to be definitely a mistake: it is not type 2.

 

[5jj]

if the criminal did that, then let's look for him there.

If I left it in the shop, then it may still be lying there.

Each of those two sentences has two possible interpretations, like the one we looked at before.

So, I'm pretty sure that we use this construction in everyday life very often. Maybe even every day.

Don't think of it as 'this construction'. These sentences contain fairly normal uses of tenses in if- clauses followed by fairly normal main clauses.

 

[Nonverbis]

Don't think of it as 'this construction'. These sentences contain fairly normal uses of tenses in if- clauses followed by fairly normal main clauses.

It is not only me: in the textbook this is referred as type 2. I believe it is wrong.

 

[emsr2d2]

It is not only me: in the textbook this is referred as type 2. I believe it is wrong.

Maybe you should just get rid of the textbook. I'm not saying whether the content is any good or not, but it certainly seems that it's not being presented in a way that you're finding easy to understand.

 

[Nonverbis]

Maybe you should just get rid of the textbook.

But what textbook can explain this? I'd gladly have a look at it.

 

[5jj]

A series of articles beginning here might be of use.

 

[Tdol]

Why grammarians don't describe it in texbooks?

And as for this textbook, this seems to be definitely a mistake: it is not type 2.

It is describing a mixed conditional, which by its nature is not a pure type 2.