Mood,study,conditional sentences,(un)real/ideal - Parts Of Speech-ESL/Learn English Grammar

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STUDY OF CONDITIONAL SENTENCES


222. There are three kinds of conditional sentences:--

[Sidenote: _Real or true._]

(1) Those in which an assumed or admitted fact is placed before the
mind in the form of a condition (see Sec. 215, 2); for example,--

     If they _were_ unacquainted with the works of philosophers and
     poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their
     names _were not found_ in the registers of heralds, they were
     recorded in the Book of Life.--MACAULAY.

[Sidenote: _Ideal,--may or may not be true._]

(2) Those in which the condition depends on something uncertain, and _may or may not be regarded true, or be fulfilled_; as,--

     If, in our case, the representative system ultimately _fail_,
     popular government must be pronounced impossible.
     --D. WEBSTER.

     If this _be_ the glory of Julius, the first great founder of the
     Empire, so it is also the glory of Charlemagne, the second
     founder.--BRYCE.

     If any man _consider_ the present aspects of what is called by
     distinction society, he will see the need of these ethics.
     --EMERSON.

[Sidenote: _Unreal--cannot be true._]

(3) Suppositions _contrary to fact_, which cannot be true, or
conditions that cannot be fulfilled, but are presented only in order
to suggest what _might be_ or _might have been_ true; thus,--

     If these things _were_ true, society could not hold together.
     --LOWELL.

     _Did not_ my writings _produce_ me some solid pudding, the great deficiency of praise would have quite discouraged me.--FRANKLIN.

     _Had_ he for once _cast_ all such feelings aside, and _striven_
     energetically to save Ney, it _would have cast_ such an      enhancing light over all his glories, that we cannot but regret its
     absence.--BAYNE.


     NOTE.--Conditional sentences are usually introduced by _if_,
     _though_, _except_, _unless_, etc.; but when the verb precedes
     the subject, the conjunction is often omitted: for example,
     "_Were I bidden_ to say how the highest genius could be most
     advantageously employed," etc.


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