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Editor: Douglas Adams |
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Conditionals are basically a sub set of adverb clauses, but deserve their own set of lessons due to their variety of forms and their ability to be inverted.
As mentioned in the lessons on adverb clauses, conditionals derive their name from the presence of a condition that must be met before a particular result can happen In the example below... If Tom steals Jessica's burger, she takes his french fries. ...we have a condition that must happen before a particular result can happen. In other words, only if the condition [Tom steals Jessica's burger] happens, does the result [she takes his french fries] happen. The sentence in the example above contains a present real conditional and is a good place to start our lesson. However, before doing so, a quick note on a small subset of the real conditionals may be useful. Past Real Conditionals Past Real Conditionals typically have the simple past in both the dependent and the independent clause(though the past continuous is also possible), and are used to express conditional habits in the past. 
for example,... If Tom saw a burger, he ate it. Special case with could: If Tom could eat a burger, he did (eat a burger). - [past possibility habit] Up Next... Present Real Conditionals |
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