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I watched a (Hollywood?) film the other day where a character visiting his just-hospitalised wife (who it seems will actually survive) says "If I would have lost you [I don't know what I'd do]".

I'd always thought this was an error made by non-native speakers (I myself would only expect "If I had lost you"), but there was nothing to suggest that in the movie. Is it a regionalism?

EDIT: Actually, that wasn't true about only expecting "If I had lost you". I'd have been perfectly happy with "If I'd have lost you", so long as I didn't think too hard about what was being elided. I'd usually elide "have" there to just a schwa (neutral vowel) anyway, and think no more about it.

FumbleFingers
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I think what has happened is the following:

  1. Most English speakers would say the clause as If I'd lost you (however they might write it), and thus should pronounce it as /ɪfaydlɔstyu/.
  2. But the stressed /-dlɔst-/ syllable in /ɪfaydlɔstyu/ is very hard to pronounce.
  3. The normal result of (1) and (2) is insertion of an epenthetic shwa between /d/ and /l/, separating the cluster and producing /ɪfaydə'lɔstyu/.

I am a native Midwestern US speaker, and although I never say If I would have instead of If I had, in fact I rarely say either, and normally contract to If I'd. And /ɪfaydə'lɔstyu/ sounds perfectly fine as a contraction to me. It does not unpack for me into anything except If I had lost you.

However, grammar school grammar being what it is in the Anglophone world, other people's parsers unpack /ɪfaydə'lɔstyu/ in various ways. Some believe, for instance, that it should (or might) be unpacked as If I would have lost you -- and some even believe that this use of the modal auxiliary would is in fact The Conditional Mood, label and all.

And I know of at least one other case of someone's unpacking it as If I had have lost you, which makes my teeth itch.

Generally what actually gets said is contracted, or otherwise subject to some kind of conversational shortening or fast speech rules. Then it gets written down and improved by scriveners, and those naughty contractions gotta go, leaving imaginative reconstructions behind.

Mutations like this are just one more way that English syntax grows.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

John Lawler
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    I also considered "If I'd have lost you" when it came up in the movie. Lost track of the action for a minute or two - but it was a slow movie, so nothing of value was lost. I often insert "have" (frequently elided to 've). If I do that, I always use the contracted 'd for the first verb too. But I cannot tell a lie - if you forced me to "unpack" it, I conceptualise what I'm saying as "If I had have lost you" (sorry about the teeth! :) – FumbleFingers Mar 28 '12 at 00:32
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    "I am a native Midwestern US speaker, and although I WOULD never say ..." – Blessed Geek Mar 28 '12 at 01:44
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    I am a professional English syntactician who is a native speaker of Midwestern US English, and who pays close attention to how he uses language. And has been doing so for over half a century. And who doesn't ever say that, though he says lotsa vother stuff. That's all. – John Lawler Mar 28 '12 at 02:47
  • So, if I had have asked whether I could've said that, you'd have said "No" (even as "had've asked")? Actually Google Books is lying in that link. There aren't about 2,140 results - only actually 45. Still, it's more than just me. I probably wouldn't write that extraneous "have", but I certainly tend to add it as a schwa saying things like "If you'd ə* told me you wə coming I'd ə baked ə cake"* – FumbleFingers Mar 28 '12 at 03:18
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    It's a matter of whether one perceives the shwa as phonological -- inserted to break up an initial cluster, like Canute for Knut, or whether it is perceived as being the remains of some auxiliary verb, in which case one has to reconstruct it from fossil evidence. – John Lawler Mar 28 '12 at 03:36
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    For me (southern English) the only two possibilities are ‘If I lost you, I don’t know what I’d do’ for a loss that hasn’t been suffered and ‘If I’d lost you, I don’t know what I’d have done’ for a loss that might have been suffered but wasn’t. – Barrie England Mar 28 '12 at 06:51
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    @Barrie England: Well I definitely say things "If I'd've asked, you'd've had to tell me". I've always known that's 've (i.e. - not of), but it's only now John's forced me to dig deeper and ask what the extra have is doing there anyway. Thanks to a previous answer here on ELU (also one of John's, I think) I now have the vocabulary to say that from my perspective ə/əv has become grammaticised. That much I can stand, but the idea of "unpacking" would from the antecedent really grates on me. – FumbleFingers Mar 28 '12 at 13:17
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    Other minds, other voices, other grammars. Everybody makes up their own language, and then we spend the rest of our lives trying to pass as "English speakers". With varying degrees of success and amusement. – John Lawler Mar 28 '12 at 14:34
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    @Barrie: do you mean that "If I've lost my cell phone, I don't know what I'll do" isn't a possibility (assuming you're currently not sure whether or not you've lost it)? – Peter Shor May 24 '13 at 14:54
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    I would say that, but mobiles (cell phones) are different from girlfriends. – Barrie England May 25 '13 at 18:05
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    I'm in the Midwestern US as well, and I hear people say "If you would have…" pretty frequently, with the word "would" fully pronounced: /ˌɪfjəˈwʊdə/. – Tanner Swett Apr 13 '14 at 17:38
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    @FumbleFingers: Not just you. I like to think I speak and write grammatical English (and I'm sure I don't, always). I don't think I'd actually say "If I'd have lost you", but it doesn't scream wrong!!! to me the way "If I would have lost you" does -- despite being, well, ungrammatical. (I'm learning to adopt Barrie England's approach to value judgments on grammar). – T.J. Crowder Jan 16 '16 at 18:36
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    @T.J. Crowder: There are thousands of written instances of if you had* have*, in many cases representing the writer's unwillingness to actually write *you'd* simply because it's an informal contraction. But since we normally use contraction in speech for such constructions, even otherwise competent speakers like myself can reach a ripe old age without ever stopping to think through Am I contracting would* or had here?* And since the full *would* sounds "clunky" to me, I'd always just assumed it was *had* – FumbleFingers Jan 16 '16 at 19:02
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    I'm a native speaker and in conversation I almost always say "would have" ("if I would have known," etc.), although I'd change it to "had" for writing. I've spent my life in New England, though, so maybe it really is regional. – Casey Mar 30 '16 at 00:34
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    I'd also say the ease with which you can turn up a grammar scold telling you this usage is wrong (with comments from seemingly native English speakers who are confused abut what is "correct") points to it being rather widespread. – Casey Mar 30 '16 at 00:37
  • I think "normal result" is too strong. It is surely perfectly fine in your dialect. It may be in American English across all dialects but I'm not sure. It's definitely not used at all in Australian British English. – hippietrail Oct 23 '16 at 09:56
  • @FumbleFingers Thank you for this link. Your question's example makes a good sense for me. It bears a strong tint of volition. To me " If I would have lost you..." comes across as follows: "If the Lord had willed that I should have lost you...". In point of "had have+PP" I will say that it won't go down as "grammatical" with almost all non-native speakers. And this construction imparts no additional tint because the Past Perfect bears Perfect implication by itself. With the Past Perfect or "would have+PP" it sounds better. – Eugene Feb 11 '23 at 18:03
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    @Eugene: The concept of "volition" means nothing to me in this context. I think mainly it's just that I never (or rarely) heard the fully articulated form in constructions like If I would* have known you were coming I'd have baked a cake. Since I only heard If I'd've known...* when I was figuring out "grammar" (native speakers learn grammar from speech at home long before they go to school), I've ended up (like millions of native Anglophones) "unpacking" the contracted form as If I had have known...**, even though according to textbook grammar that makes no sense. – FumbleFingers Feb 12 '23 at 00:17
  • @FumbleFingers Maybe the whole point lies in the fact that it is often difficult to explain to the English speakers the concept which is on my mind because my apprehension demesne is of a good difference. But, of course, herein the volitional tinge is very faint, I concede. But it becomes vivid if it would have been something like: "If you wouldn't have treated her well, we would have lost her". Some time ago I was trying to go to the native-speakers for the concept of the Future Perfect in the Subjunctive mood. – Eugene Feb 12 '23 at 07:26
  • But I haven't found understanding. I.e. "I will have done this job by 2 p.m. tomorrow on condition I am given necessary instruments". The same in The Subjunctive (with dominating future perfect concept):"I would have done this job by 2 p.m. tomorrow if I were given necessary instruments". Or "...if I would be given..." (if you had a strong will to give..."). – Eugene Feb 12 '23 at 07:35
  • @Eugene: Obviously you see "volition" here because you were taught using *non-contracted* "example" utterances (that I simply wouldn't have encountered in normal speech, where it was natural for me to parse 'd as shortened from had rather than would). And my favourite example (If I'd* have known you were coming...)* is effectively the opposite of a volitional act. It's more "unfortunate accident", same as If it hadn't have rained, we'd have had a picnic. To me, "volition" is only distantly / historically related to the usage being considered here. – FumbleFingers Feb 12 '23 at 11:49
  • @FumbleFingers Very curious case is represented by "would like". I have mused on it trying to analyse its forms' possible implications from a non-natives' point of view. As some English speakers allege (and I twig it all right), "I would have liked to..." is a present tense irrealis. For me it can be valid only in a live talk. I'm almost sure that native speakers often subconsciously imply the basic meanings of the Present Perfect. I.e. "I would have liked to borrow a book if me license hadn't lapsed" doesn't fully lie in the demesne of the present. – Eugene Feb 12 '23 at 17:15
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    @Eugene Tenses are going down in English. Most speakers are confused about them and new usages are taking root that makes them irrelevant, like many other inflections. The most important thing you can learn about English grammar is learning to use constructions; and the most important thing you can learn about English pronunciation is learning to contract almost everything, the way English speakers. – John Lawler Feb 12 '23 at 17:20
  • It's the Present Perfect inclusive which is effected here (I would have liked to) - I began to like [this idea] at an unspecified moment in the past and I still like it but I can not do that inasmuch as my license has lapsed [and is being lapsed now]. – Eugene Feb 12 '23 at 17:28
  • @John Lawler The fact, which you have noted, makes even me (a non-native speaker) despond. Of course, sometimes the rules and practice of using tenses makes it a little bit of mash for the non-natives. – Eugene Feb 12 '23 at 17:34
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    @JohnLawler: I'm not deaf (yet! :), but I got into the habit of watching movies with subtitles some years ago. And just a couple of days ago I was struck by seeing come up when some character "grunted" a quick "high pitch + low pitch" sound that in my mind was quite obviously a minimally articulated *I dunno.* How non-native speakers ever "hear" things like that is beyond me! – FumbleFingers Feb 12 '23 at 17:48
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Of course, there is not a clear question here, only an implied question. I would like to answer not based on what is the most grammatically correct (which is sometimes a ridiculous splitting of hairs) but on what might work the best for a particular situation.

My protagonist saves a life. The thought of losing this person is very emotional, very highly charged. For that reason, it makes sense to have the statement happen as quickly and as lightly as it can be said, to not deepen the heaviness of the possibility of losing them.

With that in mind, I used this:

"If I'd lost you last night …"

It is a way of saying the thought quickly and lightly and still conveying the thought. It has a nice pace that fits the rhythm of fiction dialog better than 'If I would have …', and prevents the unpacking of (saints preserve us) 'If I had have …'. Also, if the reader wants to infer 'would' rather than 'had' to fit more with their own sensibilities of understanding, they have that option based on the contraction. If they want to insert an anaptyctic schwa as they mentally read it, they can also do that.

So my point is that context can influence what works best, regardless of what your Creative Writing teacher might say as she refuses to look up over her half-glasses in reply. Every situation is a separate situation.

Tom
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The three most common conditional sentences in English are: 1] If I go home, I will be in time for tea. 2] If I went home, I would be in time for tea. 3] If I had gone home, I would have been in time for tea.

The first leaves it open. You may or may not go home but that's the choice. The second implies that you may not go home, but if you did, you would be in time for tea. Still a choice. The last implies that you missed your opportunity: you didn't go home. Too bad! No tea!

Saying or writing 'would' in the first part of the conditional e.g. 'If I would go go home, I will be in time for tea' is wrong, I think, unless there is an idea of willingness in the condition, which the above examples do not contain.

French, Italian [and Latin] do it slightly differently which maybe is where the confusion arises.

claude miller
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  • Please add some references to bolster your answer. Have a look at the [help] to find out about what this site considers good answers. – Helmar Dec 06 '16 at 09:35
  • Ah, not a good enough answer for this site! Oh dear! Well, what can I say to bolster my answer ? My understanding is that 'bolster' is another name for bulky padding rather than cogent references.....As for references, I don't have them, Helmar, just a life long interest in languages. I learnt Ancient Greek and Latin at school and maintained my interest in adult life. More recently, about twenty years ago, I learnt Italian and French and now enjoy the challenge of translating French and Italian novels into good English. – claude miller Dec 06 '16 at 11:55
  • The OP is a native speaker and quite aware of these textbook patterns, which are literally that. They represent paradigms. But native speakers regularly construct a much wider variety of grammatically correct conditional sentences. There are dozens of possibilities. The use of 'would' in the if-clause is, to my knowledge, something done by certain speakers of American English. It is not done as far as I know, by speakers of British English. Also, if I recall correctly, the OP is a native speaker of British English. – Alan Carmack Dec 06 '16 at 15:12
  • @Alan. Thanks. Here in Australia, use of 'would' in the first part of a conditional sentence is quite common. I have thought it was because so many Australians had a relatively recent migrant background where English was their second language and they were following European paradigms but am not sure now. As an English migrant to Australia, I am still struck by how many people say 'haitch' instead of 'aitch', at all levels of education. – claude miller Dec 06 '16 at 22:31
  • @Alan ...Many put this down to being taught by Irish Catholic nuns. Irish immigration into Australia was quite huge at the turn of the previous century and there has always been a very strong Catholic private school system paralleling that of the State. – claude miller Dec 06 '16 at 22:48
  • This answer doesn't invoke any authority other than the writer's subjective observations, but I like it anyway. When push comes to shove, most of us respond to grammars not our own with a visceral sense that they are doing wrong by the language; and if we were to try to analyze our objection thoughtfully, it would come out as something much like claude miller's analysis here. Only a relative few genuinely well-informed syntacticians can react with true equanimity when presented with grammatical rules that are at odds with those they habitually obey themselves. – Sven Yargs Jun 23 '17 at 18:08