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Past Subjunctive

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by realizedream » Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:28 am
I wish to know the meaning of 'Past Subjunctive'. Manhattan SC says:-

'If you put your heart into it, you could be the winner'.- Past untrue condition. What does this mean? What is the person trying to say?


(I am clear with the meaning of Past Perfect Subjunctive).
'If you had put your heart into it, you could have been the winner.'
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by realizedream » Wed Apr 27, 2011 3:30 am
calling Manhattan experts to help.
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by Jim@Grockit » Fri Apr 29, 2011 7:01 am
realizedream wrote:I wish to know the meaning of 'Past Subjunctive'. Manhattan SC says:-

'If you put your heart into it, you could be the winner'.- Past untrue condition. What does this mean? What is the person trying to say?
I just don't see how that is a past untrue condition -- it's a present untrue condition. It does use the past subjunctive -- you can't tell because the word put is the same in the present and past tense. With a different verb, it would be clearer: If I were better at explaining these things, I could make it clear quickly (but I'm not, so I can't).

It could also be a less-well-formed factual condition, trying to say that putting your heart into something opens up the possibility of winning; I would expect If you put your heart into it, you can be the winner. Having could in the second part of the condition makes it a less real possibility.

English conditional statements are a bit of a mess. :(
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