Questions tagged [future-in-the-past]
The future-in-the-past tag has no usage guidance.
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What is the meaning of "He would have finished work"?
A: It was half past five. Dad would have finished work.
Does that sentence mean there was an expectation that Dad was going to have finished work by half past five?
I found this sentence under the ...
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'is to be' vs 'was to be' with present perfect at the end of the sentence [future seen from the past]
DNA testing was to be used by police in the search for the missing Dublin schoolboy. His parents have welcomed the news.
Why 'was to be used' is incorrect in this sentence and 'is to be used' is ...
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Once conjunction for future events in the past
Say I have a first-person past-tense narration of a character. This character is narrating a scene where they're about to eat candy and thus will need to brush their teeth, but this event is occurring ...
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conditional future in the past!
Which one is correct?
My stomach was really upset. I felt that I will puke if I eat even a morsel of food.
Or
My stomach was really upset. I felt that I would puke if I eat even a morsel of food.
...
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How can I distinguish when 'would' is modal verb or Future in the Past?
In some scientific article I saw this sentence.
For example, using the vanilla Damerau-Levenshtein edit distance (defined as the minimum number of point changes required to transform a string into ...
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What shoud we write before "visit''and before 'from''? The sequence of tenses
need help with the sentence
He told me that he will/would visit them when he returns/returned from China
I think the correct variant is:
He told me that he would visit them when he returns from ...
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Future in the past + adverbial clauses which indicate time or condition
I've seen the following examples in my textbook so far.
He said that his son would graduate from college next spring.
He said that he might come tomorrow.
I wonder that if a clause which ...
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future in the past + adverbial clause
I would like to ask a question about the future in the past and the adverbial clause used in the sentence which indicates the future.
I know we can indicate future in the past, for example by using "...
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What does why would I do it mean in this context?
I've often heard people saying this. And even I say it when someone accuses me of doing something that I didn't do.
I'd say:
Why would I do that?
But what's the grammar behind it?
Is it future ...
user82287
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Is "He spoke about that afternoon for days to come" a correct sentence?
The Longman Dictionary has a sentence:
He spoke about that afternoon for days to come.
It struck me as odd, because it seems to me "for years/days to come" can only refer to time in the future. ...
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future in the past or would have+ past participle?
"He would have never dreamed that he would get the grant or that he would have got the grant ? " which is correct? according to most grammars only the first is correct(future i the past) but I gather ...
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How to say "have to" in future from past perspective?
Imagine I have learned CPR and one of my close relatives say my Uncle has choked on something and needs CPR.
Would i say this : I didn't know that i would have to put my CPR training to test (...
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Distinguish Past Future Perfect tense from subjunctive mood?
As the title says. Both tenses seem to make sense in this sentence.
If the rain had stopped sooner, I would have gone out for a walk.
To me, they look no different, and so do all the online ...
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What is the meaning of 'would' in "I was always told that only time would heal the pain"
I was always told that only time
Would heal the pain (source: #lyrics: until you were gone)
To me it sounds like it is related to willpower
Like she was told that time had potential to heal or the ...
user55625