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When referring to hypothetical future circumstance, there may be little difference in meaning between the first and second conditional (factual vs. counterfactual, realis vs. irrealis). The following two sentences have similar meaning, although the second (with the second conditional) implies less likelihood that the condition will be fulfilled:
They are so called because the impact of the sentence’s main clause is conditional on a subordinate clause. A full conditional thus contains two clauses: the subordinate clause, called the antecedent (or protasis or if-clause), which expresses the condition, and the main clause, called the consequent (or apodosis or then-clause) expressing ...
The English modal auxiliary verbs are a subset of the English auxiliary verbs used mostly to express modality, properties such as possibility and obligation. [a] They can most easily be distinguished from other verbs by their defectiveness (they do not have participles or plain forms [b]) and by their lack of the ending ‑(e)s for the third-person singular.
The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of an utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude toward it.Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, obligation, or action that has not yet occurred; the precise situations in which they are used ...
A conditional clause preceded by εἴθε (eíthe) or εἰ γάρ (ei gár) "if only" is also occasionally used in Greek for making a wish. The conjunction εἰ ( ei ) "if" also frequently introduces an indirect question.
one based on infinitive + conditional endings from the perfect of Latin habēre, (Tuscan type), e.g. canterebbe - he would sing (literally from 'he had to sing'); one based on infinitive + conditional endings from the imperfect of Latin habēre, (Sicilian/Provençal type), e.g. cantarìa (literally from 'he was having to sing');
For the use of would after the verb wish and the expression if only, see § Expressions of wish. The auxiliary verbs could and might can also be used to indicate the conditional mood, as in the following: If the opportunity were here, I could do the job. (= ... I would be able to do ... ) If the opportunity were here, I might do the job ...
The optative mood (/ ˈ ɒ p t ə t ɪ v / OP-tə-tiv or / ɒ p ˈ t eɪ t ɪ v / op-TAY-tiv; [1] abbreviated OPT) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action.It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mood.