You could [have had]/[have] a different life

[EngLearner]

I made up the following context and sentences.

John gets in with the wrong crowd and becomes a criminal. He kills someone in a street fight and receives a life sentence. His father comes to visit him in jail and says:

1. You could have had a different life. You could have been different from what you are now. It's a shame you can't go back in time and change things.

2. You could have a different life. You could be different from what you are now. I can help you with that. A friend of mine, who's a good lawyer, says your case can be reviewed and that you could be a free man. If that happens, you should bury the past and start a new life.

My interpretation of the tenses in version #1:

Not only might your life circumstances have turned out differently, but you yourself might have become a different person — and that possibility is now closed.

My interpretation of the tenses in version #2:

Your current life and identity aren't fixed. Change is still possible.

Are the bolded tenses used correctly, and is my interpretation of them correct?

 

[Piscean]

Yes.
Yes.

 

[EngLearner]

I made up the following.

SCENARIO #1:

John has betrayed a mafia boss. The boss is interrogating him and wants to hear the names of the people he works for. John won't speak, so one of the boss's men hits John. He's still silent. He hits him one more time, but John is still silent. The boss gets angry, pulls out a gun, and points it at him. He says in a threatening manner:

A. Things could be worse for you. You could be dead.

SCENARIO #2:

The same as in the first scenario. But in this case, after pointing a gun at John, the boss doesn't say anything. John gets scared and tells him the names. The boss decides to let him go. He puts the gun back in its holster and tells his men to let him go. He then says:

B. Things could have been worse for you. You could have been dead.

QUESTION:

I asked native speakers about sentences A and B and got these responses:

B doesn't make much sense, as it implies that the person might have been dead in the past and alive later. But it might be used for effect/irony, because of that.

I would say they are both reasonable. B is a little odd, for the reasons that Person #1 says, but because of the parallel structure, it works.

I would have expected sentence B to work because it follows the same logic as sentence #1 from post #1. The message conveyed by the conditional perfect, as I understand it, is something like: "You're safe now. I'm not going to kill you. The possibility of things getting worse and you being dead no longer exists."

What do you think about the tenses in sentences A and B? Are they used appropriately?

 

[jutfrank]

I don't think either sentence works very well in the context you've provided.

There's no problem with the tenses or logic. The problem for me is the authenticity of the language and what the speaker is trying to communicate. Sentence A sounds like the speaker is a friend trying to cheer John up rather than a mobster threatening him. Sentence B doesn't seem to fit very well, either.

Here are some better sentences.

A: If you don't open your mouth in the next five seconds, Johnny, things are gonna get real bad for you, real quick.

The boss uses 'going to' to show that the threat of violence is real. Using 'could' doesn't do that.

B: You did good, Johnny. Things could have gotten real bad for you.

The boss uses 'could' to say what had been previously possible.

 

[EngLearner]

John gets in with the wrong crowd and becomes a criminal. He kills someone in a street fight and is severely wounded in the process. After that, he is taken to the hospital, where he stays for some time until he fully recovers. After being discharged from the hospital, he stands trial and receives a life sentence. His father comes to visit him in jail and finds him in a bad mood. Trying to console him, he says:

C. Cheer up, fella! Things could have been worse. You could have been dead.

The logic is the same as in sentence #1 from post #1:

Even though you're in prison, you survived and recovered. The danger has passed.

Is that meaning clear from the bolded stative verbs?

I know I can say in this case:

D. Cheer up, fella! Things could have gone worse. You could have died.

But I'm curious about the stative verbs because stative verbs are used in post #1, too.

If the stative verbs don't work very well in version C, why do they work in sentence #1 (post #1)? How are the two situations different that the same logic can't be applied?

 

[jutfrank]

Trying to console him, he says:

C. Cheer up, fella! Things could have been worse. You could have been dead.

The father is talking about an alternative present, not past:

Cheer up, fella! Things could be worse. You could be dead.

 

[EngLearner]

Cheer up, fella! Things could be worse. You could be dead.

What is the implied condition for what you've written? I see it this way:

Cheer up, fella! If the guy you killed in the fight had cut you closer to the heart, or if you hadn't been treated properly in the hospital, things could be much worse now. You could be dead.

Do I understand this correctly?

 

[jutfrank]

If you're looking for a great example of the use of 'could have done', then look no further than the words of boxer Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront.

Terry (Brando) is referring to a time in the past, when his other brother Charlie (Rod Steiger) successfully conviced him at the height of his prowess to purposely throw an easy fight:

You really have to watch the whole scene to properly understand the context, but the idea is that at that past time (you might imagine moments before Terry steps into the ring), there was still a possibility of his having a successful future career, and possibly even going on to become the champ. Ever since that night Terry's dream is gone, and he blames Charlie for it.

 

[jutfrank]

What is the implied condition for what you've written?

I wasn't thinking of any condition.

I see it this way:

Cheer up, fella! If the guy you killed in the fight had cut you closer to the heart, or if you hadn't been treated properly in the hospital, things could be much worse now. You could be dead.

Do I understand this correctly?

You can understand it like that, yes.