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The 1st context is,

My family and I ate a delicious dinner yesterday. Today my sister asks me whether I ate that spicy fish dish. I tell her that I didn't even thought about eating it, and I made an unconscious decision not to eat it. Then I explain to her that I have a problem eating fish. Does the modal pattern in the following dialog fit this context?

"Did you eat it?", "If I ate that spicy fish dish yesterday, it would choke me." (Note: This is a past, real conditional.)

The 2nd context is,

My family and I ate a delicious dinner yesterday. Today my sister asks me whether I ate that spicy fish dish. I tell her that I was hesitating over whether or not to eat it. I like spicy food, but I had an upset stomach that time, so I quited. Does the modal pattern in the following dialog fit this context?

"Did you eat it?", "If I had eaten that spicy fish dish yesterday, it would have choke me." (Note: This is a past, unreal conditional.)

The 3rd context is,

My family and I ate a delicious dinner last month. Today one of my friends asks me whether I ate that spicy fish dish at that time, I tell her that I don't quite remember eating it, but I remember I just ate the dishes before me. Does the modal pattern in the following dialog fit this context?

"Did you eat it?", "If I ate that spicy fish dish, it would have been in front of me." (Note: This is a past, real conditional.)

Kinzle B
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    I would say that using the past real conditional doesn't make sense here. Because you already chose not to eat it. The past real conditional, however, is possible in report speech, i.e. you can report it like this: She asked me that ... Then I told her that ... – Damkerng T. Mar 23 '14 at 10:29
  • I told her that if I ate that spicy fish dish yesterday it would choke me. Or, I told her that if I had eaten that spicy fish dish yesterday it would have choke me? I mean context 1. – Kinzle B Mar 23 '14 at 10:35
  • I don't know whether the first two context I contrived could make any difference to the “if + would” constructions. – Kinzle B Mar 23 '14 at 10:42
  • "Did you eat it?" implies that she is asking you now. Usually, the past unreal conditional is used when you want to talk about something habitual in the past. So, in your case (context 1), it's actually the present real conditional ("Do you want to eat it?" "If I eat it, it will choke me."), and it could look like the past condition in indirect speech when you report it: I told her that if I ate that spicy fish dish yesterday, it would choke me. – Damkerng T. Mar 23 '14 at 11:00

2 Answers2

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Only the second of your sentences is correct.

At the table, you have this conversation with your mother:

MOM: Are you going to try the fish?
YOU: If I eat it it will choke me. ... non-past, real
MOM: Oh, go on, try it!
YOU: Mom, I’m not going to eat it. If I ate it, it would choke me, and you’d have a horrible mess to clean up. … non-past, unreal

The next day you have this conversation with your sister:

SIS: Did you try Mom’s spicy fish?
YOU: No, I told her that if I ate it it would choke me. ... past, real (backshifted)
SIS: Oh, Zheng, you’re so mean to her!
YOU: But I was just telling her the truth. if I had eaten it it would have choked me. … past, unreal
SIS: Did you at least try the chicken?
YOU: Hmm, I don’t remember. Was it at my end of the table? If it was in front of me, I ate it. Except the fish. … past, real
SIS: No, it was at our end. I think Dad gobbled it all up.
YOU: Then I didn’t have a chance to try it. But if it had been in front of me I would have eaten it. … past, unreal
SIS: Then I guess you didn’t eat the beef, either, because that was at our end, too.
YOU: No, that’s wrong. I did eat the beef. I only ate what was in front of me, so if I ate the beef it must have been in front of me. … past, real, inferential
SIS: No, it’s you who’re wrong. Because I remember now, Dad went up and fetched the beef back to our end, so you wouldn’t hog it all.
YOU: This is ridiculous.

nxx
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StoneyB on hiatus
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  • This is ingenious! I like the way the answer was interwoven as dialogues. – Damkerng T. Mar 23 '14 at 12:06
  • +1 This might become a go-to post for future conditional questions :) – oerkelens Mar 23 '14 at 12:32
  • Brilliant! I spent two hours in working out these scenarios. Now I see what have puzzled me. In your dialog, "If it was in front of me" indicates that I am not sure whether I ate it or not. But I think "If I ate the beef it must have been in front of me." is another story because I know I ate it and there are no uncertainties. Plz help me clarify. @StoneyB – Kinzle B Mar 23 '14 at 13:04
  • @ZhanlongZheng The line between 'unreal' and 'real' is fuzzy; but if you hold a proposition to be an 'open possibility' you use the 'real' construction. The only relevant uncertainty is handled by the if and need not be expressed in the verb form. If the sides are 3 and 4, the hypotenuse is* 5* is true, regardless of what the actual lengths are, or whether you know what the lengths are. – StoneyB on hiatus Mar 23 '14 at 13:25
  • Thx for your help, when I get to go to America I will pay a visit to you. But I am still perplexed by your answer. What does this jargon of 'open possibility' mean? You mentioned the Pythagorean theorem. Here I made it rule that I only ate what was in front of me, so whatever I ate must have been in front me. What on earth is the relevant uncertainty here? @StoneyB – Kinzle B Mar 23 '14 at 14:20
  • @ZhanlongZheng An 'open' possibility is something which may or may not have happened/be true. You said yourself that you don't know whether you ate it or not; and by the same token you don't know whether it was in front of you or not. That's an open possibility. If you know that one or the other possibility did not happen/was not true, then it is 'closed'. – StoneyB on hiatus Mar 23 '14 at 14:54
  • I suddenly realize that I might be asking the wrong question. In your dialog, I did eat the beef. I only ate what was in front of me, so if I ate the beef it must have been in front of me. Don't the two bold sentences contradict each other? @StoneyB – Kinzle B Mar 23 '14 at 15:15
  • @ZhanlongZheng They're not contradictory. In that pair you are not questioning whether you ate the beef, you are restating it as a premise from which you may draw a conclusion. "A is true. But if A is true, then B is also true. Therefore, B is true." – StoneyB on hiatus Mar 23 '14 at 15:19
  • Sounds a little bit odd for me. Anyway, whenever I see an if-clause relating to a past, real condition I am always thinking whether the event happened or not. Perhaps it is not the right way of thinking this easily-confused pattern. @StoneyB – Kinzle B Mar 23 '14 at 15:49
  • @ZhanlongZheng 'Real' can mean 'I know it actually happened' OR 'I think it very possible that it happened', while 'unreal' can mean 'I know it didn't happen' OR 'I think it very unlikely that it happened'. But there's always a big grey area. – StoneyB on hiatus Mar 23 '14 at 15:53
  • I like you way of defining realness. I am kind of a Buddist or Confucius. I know what the idealism means. – Kinzle B Mar 23 '14 at 16:01
  • @ZhanlongZheng That's not my definition of reality ... it's just what is meant when you contrast the very loose grammatical terms 'real' and 'unreal' as they refer to the English language. – StoneyB on hiatus Mar 23 '14 at 16:08
  • @StoneyB Just added an "it" to "if I had eaten it would have choked me". – nxx Mar 25 '14 at 01:44
  • In another of your answers: http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/19533/another-interpretation-of-this-second-conditional-sentence You gave an example: if I did meet him, I would have called my mother. (past, real). Based on that, I made the above example in this Q (the 3rd one). Why did you say it's incorrect? I think they share the same pattern. @StoneyB – Kinzle B Sep 26 '15 at 11:40
  • @KinzleB The sentence at #19533 introduces would as a desperate expedient to express an inference about an action which followed the event in the IF clause, meeting him. But the sentence here expresses an inference about a state simultaneous with the event in the IF clause. Would is not 'wrong' there; but it's not the modal we'd ordinarily select. ... Please be aware that English really doesn't have enough modal verbs and modal forms to handle all of these very far-fetched examples. You're operating in a sort of "test to failure" mode with these questions. – StoneyB on hiatus Sep 26 '15 at 11:57
  • @KinzleB I hasten to add that that's not a criticism. On the contrary, I really enjoy your questions. It's just a warning that you shouldn't expect any definitive answers! – StoneyB on hiatus Sep 26 '15 at 12:00
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I think you want to go with unreal here, the second option, since it has no affect on you now. At least, it's what makes the most sense to my ear.

Also, 'choke' has to be 'choked' in past perfect.

'If I had eaten that spicy fish dish yesterday, it would have choke*d* me.'

The first one, 'it would choke me', sounds like it still can affect you. You didn't eat it, and are living with the consequences, as opposed to still being able to affect the outcome of that decision.

The third one is set up in consequence-action, which doesn't make sense. You want to say, 'If it had been in front of me, I would have eaten it.' This is action-consequence, which is much more straightforward to understand.

'First it was placed in front of me, then I ate it' makes more sense than 'I ate it, and it was placed in front of me before this.' Of course, this should be a conditional instead.

jfa
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