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sibgakhan · #16 Sunday, February 26, 2006

Why is #1 correct and #2 is incorrect?
1. If she has time, she could go to the party.
2. If she has time, she would go to the party.

Are these correct? If not, why? What do they mean?

3. If she had time, she might go to the party. (This is correct? How come 'might' is not in past tense? How come 'might' is not 'would'? )
4. If she had time, she can go to the party. (How come #3 is correct but #4 is not?)
5. If she had time, she should go to the party. (Is this correct? Why?)

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Strictly speaking, the modals are not tensed. However, they developed historically from tensed verbs. Each group below shows a "historical present / past" pair.

can / could
shall / should
will / would
may / might
must - not paired

In modern English, any of these can be used in a single clause sentence, but when it occurs in just one of two or more clauses in the same sentence, it needs to be matched correctly with the tense in the other clause.

Typically, when the accompanying clause is an "if" clause, the historical present tense forms go with present tense verbs, and historical past tense forms go with past tense verbs. However, "could" and "might", meaning "may" ("it is possible"), can be used with present tense verbs (as well as with past tense verbs). "should" has lost most of its force as a past tense and is better thought of as a present tense form in modern English, meaning "it is advisable". ("shall" is the least used of the modals shown above.) The result of all these historical changes is that in modern English we have far more choices in sentences with a present point of view than in those with a past point of view.

With this in mind we have:

If she has [present] time, she [can, could, (shall), should, will, may, might, must] go to the party. [not "would']

If she had [past] time, she [could, would, might] go to the party. [not "should"]

For reported speech we have the pairs:

He says that he [can, could, (shall), should, will, would, may, might, must] go to the party.

He said that he [could, could, (shall), should, would, would, might, might, must] go to the party.

Note how "can", "will", and "may" are restricted to the present, and the corresponding forms "could", "would", and "might" are used to report "can" or "could", "will" or "would", or "may" or "might" in the past.