Do better than a calculated guess in handling conditional sentences

I know for a fact that a lot of writers and editors—including myself when I still didn’t know any better—often draw a blank in their grammar when dealing with conditional sentences that have an “if”-clause. For the result clause of such sentences, many of us simply couldn’t be absolutely sure whether to use “will” or “would” plus the base form of the verb…or perhaps just its simple present tense. Somehow the basis for the choice isn’t adequately taught or learned in school, so many of us end up just hazarding a calculated guess that at best only has a 33.33% probability of being correct. 

Check this hypothesis of mine by testing yourself with these three multiple-choice questions:

1. “If water is heated to 100 degrees Centigrade, it (will boil, would boil, boils).”

2. “I (will qualify, would qualify, qualify) for the post if I’m a civil service eligible, but I’m not.”

3. “If you pass the qualifying test, you (will get, would get, get) a full scholarship.”

How did you fare? I would consider a score of 66.66% a passing grade.

Anyway, to help improve the capability of native and nonnative English users alike in handling conditional sentences, I wrote an essay on the subject, “The four types of conditional sentences,” in my English-usage column in The Manila Times in the middle of last year. I am posting that essay now in this week’s edition of the Forum to provide everybody a firmer and more reliable basis for constructing them. (January 8, 2011)  

The four types of conditional sentences

One important aspect of English grammar that I don’t recall having discussed fully yet is the conditional sentence. This is the type of sentence that conveys the idea that the action in the main clause can take place only if the condition in the subordinate clause—the “if”-clause—is fulfilled.

The simplest form of the conditional sentence has this structure: the “if” clause states the condition in the present simple tense, is followed by a comma, then followed by the result clause in the form “will + base form of the verb,” as in this example: “If you meet your sales quota, we will give you a fat bonus.”

But there are actually four types of conditional sentences, each type indicating the degree of certainty or likelihood that the stated condition will be fulfilled. They are the so-called first conditional or real possibility, the second conditional or unreal possibility, the third conditional or no possibility, and the zero conditional or certainty.

The first conditional (real possibility)

The first conditional talks about a high degree of possibility that a particular condition or situation will happen in the future as a result of a possible future condition. This is the case with the first conditional sentence given earlier: “If you meet your sales quota, we will give you a fat bonus.” As with all types of conditional sentences, of course, the result clause can also be stated ahead of the cause clause, as in this example: “We will give you a fat bonus if you meet your sales quota.”

The second conditional (unreal possibility)

The second conditional talks about a possible but very unlikely result that the stated future condition will be fulfilled; in short, the stated outcome is an unreal possibility. This type of conditional has the following sentence structure: the “if” clause states the future condition in the simple past tense, is followed by a comma, then followed by the future result clause in the form “would + base form of the verb,” as in this example: “If I finished law school, I would be a lawyer.” (“I would be a lawyer if I finished law school.”) The speaker here is talking of an unreal possibility because he didn’t finish school and didn’t become a lawyer.

The third conditional (no possibility)

The third conditional talks about a condition in the past that didn’t happen, thus making it impossible for a wished-for result to have happened. This type of sentence has the following structure: the “if” clause states the impossible past condition using the past perfect tense “had + past participle of the verb,” is followed by a comma, then followed by the impossible past result in the form “would have + past participle of the verb,” as in this example: “If I had saved enough money, I would have bought that house.” (“I would have bought that house if I had saved enough money.”) The speaker here is talking of an impossible situation because he had not saved enough money and has not bought that house.

Third conditionals could sometimes also use the modal forms “should have,” “could have,” and “might have,” as in these modal variants of the example above: “If I had saved enough money, I should have bought that house.” “If I had saved enough money, I could have bought that house.” “If I had saved enough money, I might have bought that house.” In all three cases, of course, none of the wished-for situations in the past had taken place.

The zero conditional (certainty)

Finally, the zero conditional or certainty talks about a condition whose result is always true and always the same, like a scientific fact. It has the following sentence structure: the “if” clause states the condition in the simple present tense, is followed by a comma, then followed by the result clause also in the simple present tense, as in this example: “If people don’t drink water, they get dehydrated.” (“People get dehydrated if they don’t drink water.”) (June 12, 2010)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, July 10, 2010 © 2010 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Misuse of “lie” and “lay” punctures many writers’ command of English

In the English language, there are some sound-alike and spelled-alike verb pairs that often cause a lot of confusion, and the most troublesome of them is arguably the verb pair “lie” and “lay.” Indeed, who hasn’t been tripped yet by this treacherous verb pair? Over the years, I would often come across writing even by professionals—essays, business reports, position papers, news and feature stories—where “lie” is mistaken for “lay,” and vice versa. The semantic damage to the sentence might be slight, but the misuse of either word nevertheless shows a glaring hole in the writer’s command of English.

In a series of essays about vexing errors in English that I wrote for my English-usage column in The Manila Times in 2007, I explained the grammatical reason behind the profound tendency of people to fumble when using “lie” and “lay.” I’m sure that reading the essay will clarify whatever doubts Forum members and guests might have about the usage of these two words, so I have decided to post that essay in this week’s edition of the Forum. (December 25, 2010)  

 

Why we often get into trouble using the verbs “lie” and “lay”

As I’m sure you must have already encountered in your own newspaper or magazine readings, some similar-sounding or somewhat similarly spelled pairs of verbs often get annoyingly misused because it’s not so easy to figure out whether they are being used intransitively or transitively. Among these verb-pairs, easily the most troublesome are the intransitive verb “lie,” which means to stay at rest horizontally, and the transitive “lay,” which means to put or set something down.

The intransitive “lie” is most commonly misused when it’s forced to function as a transitive verb in sentences like this one: “The ousted manager went to his office and laid on the couch.” The correct usage here is, of course, the intransitive past tense “lay”: “The ousted manager went to his office and lay on the couch.” On the other hand, the intransitive, past tense “lay down” is often mistakenly used in sentences like this: “The rebels surrendered and lay down their arms.” This time, the correct usage is the transitive, past-tense “laid down”: “The rebels surrendered and laid down their arms.”

Often, too, the intransitive present tense verb “lay” is misused in sentences like this one: “The geographers are checking precisely where the islands detected recently by satellite lay in the Pacific Ocean.” The correct usage here is the transitive, plural present tense “lie”: “The geographers are checking precisely where the islands detected recently by satellite lie in the Pacific Ocean.”

Why are “lie” and “lay” such problematic verbs? To find out, let’s once again clearly distinguish between intransitive and transitive verbs.

A verb is intransitive when it doesn’t need a direct object to work properly in a sentence, as is the case with “yawned” in this sentence: “During his trial, the unrepentant criminal often yawned.” Here, “yawned” is clearly intransitive. It doesn’t need a direct object, and the sentence is complete without one.

On the other hand, a verb is transitive when it absolutely needs a direct object to receive its action, as is the case with “grip” in this sentence: “He gripped my arm.” Drop the direct object of such verbs and the sentence no longer makes sense: “He gripped.”

Now, the problem with “lie” and “lay” is that apart from the fact that they have somewhat overlapping meanings, they are also highly irregular verbs that inflect or change forms in such unpredictable, confusing ways.

The intransitive “lie,” in the sense of staying at rest horizontally, inflects as follows: “lies” for the singular present tense, as in “She chokes when she lies down”; “lie” for the plural present tense, as in “They choke when they lie down”; “lay” for the past tense, whether singular or plural, as in “She got tired and lay down”; and the past participle “lain” in the perfect tenses, as in “She has lain all day while her husband is away.” None of the usages of “lie” above has a direct object.

Now here’s how the transitive “lay,” in the sense of setting something down, inflects: “lays” for the singular present tense, as in “She meticulously lays breakfast for us”; “lay” for the plural present tense, as in “They meticulously lay breakfast for us”; “laid” for the past tense, as in “We laid our laptops on the table”; and the past participle “laid” for the perfect tenses, as in “They had laid their laptops aside by the time their manager arrived.” Here, every usage of “lie” has a direct object.

Take note that among these inflections, the past tense form of the intransitive “lie”—“lay”—is exactly the same as that of the present tense plural of the transitive “lay”—also “lay.” It is this quirk of the language that makes it difficult for us to see whether “lie” or “lay” is being used transitively or intransitively, so we must be very careful indeed when using these two highly irregular verbs. (September 15, 2007)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, September 15, 2007 © 2007 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

The appropriate way to position subordinate clauses and phrases

The serious student of writing in English soon discovers that formal expository writing and newspaper journalism differ profoundly in their approach to subordination and word order. Formal exposition like the essay uses the “upright pyramid” mode, meaning that it starts with contextual or foundation ideas first and builds up to the conclusion—an approach that has the effect of having the more important information presented later instead of earlier at the sentence level and in the composition as a whole. In contrast, newswriting uses the so-called “inverted pyramid” mode of presenting information—it generally tells the reader the conclusion first, follows it with the most important supporting information, then continues the story by giving aspects of its background in an order of diminishing importance. This different approach to subordination and word order normally confuses a lot of beginning writers, and their inability to recognize the difference often results in badly constructed sentences and confusing compositions as well.

It was for this reason that I wrote a two-part essay, “Subordination and word order in English,” for my English-usage column in The Manila Times in February 2009. By discussing the differences between expository writing and news writing, I hoped to help writers in general and entry-level journalists in particular routinely avoid the often serious problems in grammar, semantics, and logic that they sometimes unknowingly commit in their day-to-day writing. This time, for the benefit of Forum members and guests, I have combined the two-part essay into just one for posting in this week’s edition of the Forum. (October 16, 2010)

Subordination and word order in English

We all know that in English, the main clause of a sentence is generally more important than a subordinate clause or phrase, but many of you must have wondered which position is most appropriate for a subordinate clause or phrase—up front, at the tail end, or elsewhere in the sentence?

Consider this sentence from an Agence France-Presse news dispatch, for instance: “Resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations, in what activists say is a ‘land grab’ that will worsen poverty and malnutrition.”

Here, of course, it’s obvious that the main clause is “resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations,” and that the subordinate element is “in what activists say is a ‘land grab’ that will worsen poverty and malnutrition.”

But what about positioning that subordinate element up front instead? The construction seems to read just as well: “In what activists say is a ‘land grab’ that will worsen poverty and malnutrition, resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations.” And the meaning also stays perfectly intact if the subordinate element is placed neatly within the main clause: “Resource-hungry nations, in what activists say is a ‘land grab’ that will worsen poverty and malnutrition, are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations.”

So, we might as well ask once and for all, what’s the definitive rule for positioning subordinate clauses and phrases?

There are two general grammatical principles for conveying the relative importance of ideas in a sentence. The first, which I have already invoked above, is that ideas expressed in main clauses are generally more important than those in subordinate ones. This rule is, of course, so self-evident that it doesn’t merit further discussion. But the second rule is likely to throw many newspaper reporters and newspaper readers off balance, for it says so counterintuitively that an idea or information given later in a sentence is usually more important than those given earlier.

Indeed, following this second rule, it would seem that by being back-shifted in the sentence I have given as an example, the subordinate element “in what activists say is a ‘land grab’ that will worsen poverty and malnutrition” assumes more importance than the main clause, “resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations.”

But this clearly contradicts the first rule, which says that ideas expressed in main clauses are generally more important than those in subordinate clauses and phrases. If we were to scrupulously follow the two rules, in fact, the optimal position of the subordinate clause in that sentence would be up front: “In what activists say is a ‘land grab’ that will worsen poverty and malnutrition, resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations.”

So why then does the Agence France-Presse lead sentence seemingly violate the twin rules on subordination and word order?

The reason is this: newspaper journalism differs profoundly from formal exposition when it comes to indicating the relative importance of ideas in a sentence. As we all know, the typical news story uses the so-called “inverted pyramid” mode of presenting information. This approach to storytelling tells the reader the conclusion first, follows it with the most important supporting information, then continues the story by giving aspects of its background in an order of diminishing importance.

In contrast, formal exposition uses the “upright pyramid” mode, meaning that it starts with contextual or foundation ideas first and builds up to the conclusion. It is therefore not surprising that in formal expository writing, the more important information in a sentence—and in the exposition as a whole for that matter—tends to be presented later instead of earlier.

This front-shifting, of course, follows the general rule in English subordination and word order that information given later in a sentence is usually more important than that given earlier. Thus, in formal exposition, the subordinate element in that sentence given as an example above normally gets front-shifted as follows: “In what activists say is a ‘land grab’ that will worsen poverty and malnutrition, resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations.”

As a stand-alone construction, the above sentence that front-shifts the subordinate element is semantically equivalent to the earlier sentence that back-shifts that same subordinate element. There’s hardly any difference in their meaning. However, when writers back-shift subordinate clauses and phrases indiscriminately, as so often happens in straight-news reporting, very serious problems in semantics and logic can arise.

Indeed, injudicious back-shifting often produces misplaced modifiers, those improperly positioned words, phrases, or clauses that make sentences sound awkward, confusing, or downright absurd and illogical.

Consider the following three problematic lead sentences from recent news stories:

(1) “Half of Metro Manila may have to wait a while longer before enjoying the benefits of having a wastewater treatment facility after regulators deferred the increase in rates.”

Here, the back-shifting of the subordinate clause “after regulators deferred the increase in rates” makes it nonsensically modify the phrase “having a wastewater treatment facility.” The correct, logical position of that subordinate clause is, of course, up front in that sentence, where it can modify the whole main clause instead: “After regulators deferred the increase in water rates, half of Metro Manila may have to wait a while longer before it can enjoy the benefits of having a wastewater treatment facility.”

(2) “The spokesman did not disclose the details of the operation to ensure the safety of the hostages.”

Here, the backshifting of the prepositional phrase “to ensure the safety of the hostages” makes it wrongly modify the noun “operation,” giving the sentence a cockeyed, absurd sense. The intended sense clearly emerges when that prepositional phrase is front-shifted: “To ensure the safety of the hostages, the spokesman did not disclose the details of the operation.”

(3) “Around 190 solons are expected to support and petition for the immediate passage of a measure seeking to rehabilitate and utilize the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant when Congress resumes session on Monday.”

Here, the back-shifting of the subordinate clause “when Congress resumes session on Monday” makes it wrongly modify the prepositional phrase “to rehabilitate and utilize the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant,” thus muddling up the time frame for the actions described in the sentence. The correct sense emerges when that subordinate clause is front-shifted so it can relate to the whole main clause instead: “When Congress resumes session on Monday, around 190 solons are expected to support and petition for the immediate passage of a measure seeking to rehabilitate and utilize the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.”

It should be clear by now that when done indiscriminately, back-shifting subordinate clauses and phrases can be extremely hazardous to our writing. We thus need to be more judicious in constructing our sentences to ensure that our expositions are semantically and logically flawless at all times.

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, February 7 and 14, 2009, © 2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.