Timeline for could be with past, present and future
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 20, 2022 at 18:36 | vote | accept | JN Raju | ||
| Jan 20, 2022 at 18:29 | comment | added | Colin Fine | No. One use of it is for (possibly realisable) conditions in the pas: They could have seen him yesterday: they didn't tell me. Another use of it is for an irrealis (or counterfactual - something that did not/is not going to happen) in any tense: I could have been rich if my company hadn't failed might be referring to a past or to a present or future possibility, but in any case the speaker knows that it can't happen. | |
| Jan 20, 2022 at 18:19 | comment | added | JN Raju | so "could have been" used for past only, not for non-past. | |
| Jan 20, 2022 at 17:48 | comment | added | Colin Fine | Yes, except that there are chances is not idiomatic: there is a chance that... Your second and third examples use the same tense, the non-past (often misleadingly referred to as the "present"), which was why I said it was fine with the non-past. | |
| Jan 20, 2022 at 17:43 | comment | added | JN Raju | Is this ok, "There are chances that the bridge could be removed tomorrow by this time". | |
| Jan 20, 2022 at 17:33 | history | answered | Colin Fine | CC BY-SA 4.0 |