would have done/would have been doing to talk about future?

[coleridgest]

I have been wondering for some time if it is possible to use Future Perfect /Future Perfect Continuous to talk about the future or if not than what construction might be used instead. My line of thinking is this:

- if we wish to say that at some moment some activity or state is in continuation for some time we use Perfect construction (if I am not mistaken)
e.g. When she came, I had been watching the match for 30 minutes already.
I have been watching the match for 30 min. now.
I will have been watching the match for 30 min when you come.

If we wish to say that the situation is only a hypothetical variant which did not, does not, will not happen, we should use the -in-the-Past versions of the above?

It is pretty obvious for all known authors of grammar books to recommend the construction would have done/would have been doing to talk about a past situation that did not take place but what about of the present and the future?

For example, one may find in grammar books sentences like: "We will have been married for 10 years tomorrow." but what if it is only a hypothetical statement, e.g. If you had listened to my advice back then, tomorrow you and Kate would have been married for 10 years.

I know a native speaker who disqualifies such sentences but he can not give me an alternative. In conditional sentences it is possible to use "would do/would be doing" to talk about the future, why not Future Perfect in the Past, then?

 

[Weaver67]

My opinion on this may be seen as mistaken or, at least, less reliable than that of other members who are teachers. Still, I think I should try and express it.

I think that the perfective aspect is also called retrospective because it gives the opportunity to look back, as it were, from some point in time; and hence is the name. This point may be in the future as well:

We'll meet again next Thursday. We could have finished the task by then.


Not a teacher.

 

[coleridgest]

Thank you immensely for your prompt answers - they have cleared my thoughts considerably.