if...., would

[Buno]

Hi Everyone!

I wonder if you can help me with this sentence:

"if the author has misconstrued her classification..., this would skewer the entire work..."

Is this sentence gramatically correct? I would have written:
"if...had misconstrued..., this would have skewed....
"if...misconstrued..., this would skew or have skewed

If the sentence he wrote is correct, could you explain to me the role behind this construction?

Thank you!!

Buno:shock:

 

[Tdol]

if the author had misconstrued = traditional third conditional related to the past and means that they did not misconstrue it
if the author has misconstrued = it's possible but we really don't know, so we use the second conditional after it because it's not fair/safe to assume that they have

 

[Buno]

thank you very much!!