If there were no lawyers, we would be unlikely to have made the deal in China.

[svetlana14]

If there were no lawyers, we would be unlikely to have made the deal in China.

1. If there is no context, can one conclude that it is just "generalisation" or "hypothetical" situation or can it be read in two ways so that one can also admit that it is about a past (real) event (we came back from China after the deal has been signed there)? In other words, the context is necessary.
2. Is the perfect infinitive the marker which makes such sentence to read in two ways?
3. Is it conventional (grammatically correct) to use such sentence at all?

 

[Rover_KE]

Source and author?

 

[svetlana14]

Source and author?

It is my hypothetical text.

 

[5jj]

That's an unnarural sentence. What message did you wish to convey when you wrote that?

 

[jutfrank]

I'm having trouble understanding where this question is coming from. Why are you asking us what you mean? What do you want to say?

Is this about conditionals or are you really asking about 'be likely to have done'?

 

[emsr2d2]

If you made the deal but you're trying to explain what would have happened in the absence of lawyers, you'd start with "If there hadn't been any lawyers". I would finish that sentence with "... we probably wouldn't have made the deal".

 

[svetlana14]

I'm having trouble understanding where this question is coming from. Why are you asking us what you mean? What do you want to say?

Is this about conditionals or are you really asking about 'be likely to have done'?

I want to say that if there were no lawyers (in general, as professionals, as a “handy tool" ), it would probably have been problematic (or it would been even unrealistic) to make the deal (during our last stay (last negotiations) in China). Now we are in UK, the deal has been made, we are happy to discuss such hypothesis.

As I understand, in grammar books such situations are referred to as mixed conditionals. For instance, If the island were still a tourist attraction, last week's earthquake would have caused far more deaths.

Does the pattern/construction used in my initial sentence: “If there were no lawyers, we would be unlikely to have made the deal in China” make sense if I want to describe such situation?​

 

[5jj]

Does the pattern/construction used in my initial sentence: “If there were no lawyers, we would be unlikely to have made the deal in China” make sense if I want to describe such situation?​

The sentence is not at all natural. I would expect "If the were no lawyers, we probably wouldn't have done that deal in China." Even that is not particularly natural. More natural might be "If it hadn't been for the lawyers, ..."