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Prototypical conditional sentences in English are those of the form "If X, then Y". The clause X is referred to as the antecedent (or protasis), while the clause Y is called the consequent (or apodosis). A conditional is understood as expressing its consequent under the temporary hypothetical assumption of its antecedent.
Conditional sentences in Latin are traditionally classified into three categories, based on grammatical structure. simple conditions (factual or logical implications) present tense [if present indicative then indicative] sī valēs, gaudeo "if you are well, I am glad" past tense [if perfect indicative then indicative]
The conditional perfect progressive or conditional perfect continuous construction combines conditional mood with perfect progressive aspect. It consists of would (or sometimes should in the first person, as above) with the bare infinitive have, the past participle been and the present participle of the main verb. It generally refers to a ...
These conditionals differ in both form and meaning. The indicative conditional uses the present tense form "owns" and therefore conveys that the speaker is agnostic about whether Sally in fact owns a donkey. The counterfactual example uses the fake tense form "owned" in the "if" clause and the past-inflected modal "would" in the "then" clause ...
In a present unreal conditional, the protasis may have the optative in both halves, although this is very rare. [114] In a past unreal conditional the protasis has either an imperfect or an aorist indicative, and in the apodosis either an imperfect or aorist indicative with ἄν (án) or κέ (ké), or an aorist or present optative with κέ ...
Most verbs have three or four inflected forms in addition to the base form: a third-person singular present tense form in -(e)s (writes, botches), a present participle and gerund form in -ing (writing), a past tense (wrote), and – though often identical to the past tense form – a past participle (written).
The conditional simple and progressive may also be called the present conditional, while the perfect forms can be called past conditional. For details of the formation of conditional clauses and sentences in English, see English conditional sentences.
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.