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I was studying about inverted conditional clause when I came across this sentence.

Should you require any further information about the program please do not hesitate to ask for it.

I am confused that the result and the condition clause both are in present tense(rule of zero conditional). However, I read somewhere on stackexchange that inverted should clause is used for type 1 conditionals( Simple present, Will future).

Now I want to know is my sentence type 0 conditional or type 1 conditional? If its type 1 then why its result is in present.

1 Answer 1

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"Should" can introduce the condition clause of a first conditional, but it can also introduce a zero conditional with an imperative in the results clause, as in your example.

However, whereas a simple present can be used in both clauses to express a general truth, "should" can't be used in those kinds of zero conditional. For example, you can say "If it rains, you get wet" and "If water boils, it evaporates", but you can't say "Should it rain, you get wet" or "Should water boil, it evaporates". These statements would be ungrammatical because "should" marks the condition as a hypothetical, which conflicts with the expression of a general truth.

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