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[1.] "If I would have known about the party, I would have gone to it."

This is INCORRECT, although commonly used, especially in American English.

The correct form is: [2.] If + had + past participle, would + have + past participle

[For the above example:] [3.] "If I had known about the party, I would have gone." This is CORRECT.

I accept that [2] is correct, but exactly how and why is 1 wrong? I've never heard it before, because this is an argument from personal experience, which can be a fallacy. If the apodosis is a 3rd cdtl (abbreviation for 'conditional'), why must the protasis also NOT be a 3rd cdtl?

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  • I can't get past Karen's "issues" about grammatical forms that she finds "annoying." –  Nov 05 '14 at 16:40
  • This is a bit advanced for people who're still learning English. It should be moved to ELU – Carl Smith Nov 05 '14 at 16:43
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    No, it shouldn't. ELL is the perfect place to talk about conditional constructions, something that's challenging for L2 speakers but automatic for L1 speakers. –  Nov 05 '14 at 17:07
  • @CarlSmith If you follow the [tag:conditional-constructions] tag you will see that questions about this arise constantly here. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 05 '14 at 18:01
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    “Third conditional”, among those who use the term (mostly teachers of English as a second language) is not a morphological term but a syntactic term. That is, it does not designate a particular form or construction of a verb but a particular sort of IF...(THEN) construction (conditional construction) in which both the IF clause (condition clause, protasis) and the THEN clause (consequence clause, apodosis) employ verbs cast in a form which signifies past tense and irrealis or ‘hypothetical’ mode. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 05 '14 at 18:29
  • @StoneyB [Striclty for your ears only! That's true apart from that tense in backshifted conditionals, only really seems to have an aspectual role] – Araucaria - Not here any more. Nov 05 '14 at 21:18
  • @Araucaria I'm not clear what 'tense' you're speaking of here? .. I suspect most instances of if .. would have represent misexpansions (either in transcription or by hypercorrection) of if .. 'da; and I believe that 'da is no longer an actual contraction (though that is undoubtedly its origin) but an independent colloquial clitic with past irrealis sense. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 06 '14 at 13:05
  • @StoneyB I was referring to "a form which signifies past tense* (past time?) and '... 'hypothetical' mode*". Did you mean to imply past time there? I originally read it as 'past time' but I now realise that that was just what I'd interpreted. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Nov 06 '14 at 13:47
  • @Araucaria Ah .. no, I generally use tense to mean 'time reference', a property of the clause. I usually use form for the inflected verb and construction for grammaticalized sequences of verbs, but I haven't yet decided which is primary: whether a form is a one-word construction or a construction a multi-word form. ... – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 06 '14 at 14:11
  • ... I'm less consistent about the use of tense for the feature borne by the first verb in a construction: I sometimes follow convention and speak of the 'tensed verb', but I dislike the term because that feature may indicate either tense or mode. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 06 '14 at 14:13
  • @StoneyB In that case, what I meant was that the '2nd/3rd' conditional difference seems to have more of an aspectual flavour than a time reference one. For example: 'If Joe Morello had been playing tomorrow, it would have been a fantastic concert' or 'If I was about to go over the top, (in the first world war), I would be absolutely terrified'. So it seem to be that maybe it just provides a looking forward/backwards at the hypothetical event stance, a bit like aspect in normal usage ... – Araucaria - Not here any more. Nov 06 '14 at 14:19
  • @StoneyB (But that's just more of my off the wall analysis). I agree that - especially on ELL - it's bit difficult not to refer to tenses in that way, because that's the meaning of 'tense' that's used in the EFL world, and so the meaning students are used to. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Nov 06 '14 at 14:30
  • @Araucaria The tenses reflect the covert semantics, though: "If Joe Morello had been scheduled to play tomorrow it would have been evident that the concert would be fantastic, and I would have bought tickets; but Morello's been dead for three years, so I didn't." And the would be terrified is habitual will, not futurive. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 06 '14 at 14:31
  • @StoneyB How about, If I was about to go over the top at the battle of the Somme, I would be quaking in my boots or I would shoot my commanding officer and run away or I would wonder if I was ever going to see my family again ... Or for the Morello one: 'I would have really enjoyed the concert' ? Are they kinda different? – Araucaria - Not here any more. Nov 06 '14 at 14:35
  • @Araucaria That's only going to arise in a context where you're imaginatively projecting yourself into the past and adopting the past RT as your ST. Which is not so unusual: it happens all the time in rehearsal. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 06 '14 at 14:40
  • @Araucaria I like H&P's terminological/conceptual distinction between tense (form) and time (a type of meaning). We can cheat a little bit and say "past tense form" and "present time reference", adding those extra words to make it clear what we mean even to people who aren't used to using terminology the same way. –  Nov 07 '14 at 11:24
  • @snailboat I think in my head I'd flipped over to another point after the diversion, which is it's a bit difficult to avoid EFL 'tense' terminology like 'future perfect perfect continuous' although I do mostly manage to. I agree that the tense time distinction is positively helpful for learners ... – Araucaria - Not here any more. Nov 07 '14 at 12:14

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What is correct or not in case such as this is largely a convention. In British English, If I would have known you were coming, I would have baked a cake is considered incorrect both because prescriptive writers tell we have to say If I had known and because descriptive writers confirm that that is what we do say in standard BrE (but see the note at the end of this answer).

I don't know what the 'rule' is in American English, but I know from contact with Americans over the last fifteen years that many of them say If I would have known .... Discussion with trainee teachers suggests that many of them believe it is correct.

Note. In British English,

Instead of an ordinary preterite perfect, a non-standard 'double perfect' is often found:

If it had've come yesterday he would surely have told her.

I wish he hadn't've left.

This is largely restricted to speech (or the written representation of speech) It appears to be increasing in frequency and though it is not yet established as a standard form, it is used by many who in general speak standard English

Huddleston & Pullum, 2002.151, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language

In contracted forms such as If I'd've known ..., one cannot say for certain whether the 'd is a contraction of had or would. However, most British speakers who use this form expand the 'd to had in emphatic and negative utterance.

Araucaria - Not here any more.
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  • I've gone in to separate out your examples onto different lines. You could either roll back the edit or widdle around with a full stop and my ugly square thingy and name will disappear, as I'm sure you know! – Araucaria - Not here any more. Nov 05 '14 at 21:22