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Is it correct to say:

even if only James Bond will benefit from...

or

even if only James Bond benefits from...

RegDwigнt
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Vlad Balmos
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3 Answers3

5

I disagree with the (currently) accepted answer. I see nothing wrong with...

Even if only you will benefit, it's worth doing.

In defiance of pedants everywhere, I deny that there's any significant nuance differentiating...

Even if only you benefit, it will be worth doing.

Even if only you benefit, it would be worth doing.

Even if only you will benefit, it's worth doing.

Even if only you will benefit, it'll be worth doing.

Even if only you would benefit, it's worth doing.

Even if only you would benefit, it'll be worth doing.

etc., etc.

...and I certainly see no point in debarring any combination on the grounds that it's somehow "not grammatical". The fact of the matter is all these variations occur, and it would be unlikely even for the speaker to choose one over another to convey some subtle shade of meaning. The possibility of his audience actually apprehending any such subtle distinction is effectively zero.

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FumbleFingers
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    Speaking for pedants everywhere, I feel fully defied. But you mispronounced pedant. – John Lawler Jan 16 '12 at 00:50
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    Dang! I thought only my cat could hear me stomping around and ranting! – FumbleFingers Jan 16 '12 at 00:53
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    I agree with FF here. Why are people so determined to constrain expression with silly, arbitrary rules? Even if someone finds multiple citations to the contrary, I will continue to feel free to finish this type of sentence with a future tense. Keep on fighting the good fight, FumbleFingers! – Robusto Feb 03 '12 at 16:20
  • @Robusto: And even if no-one else will, I'll upvote your comment! (plus I freely admit I upvoted before typing this comment! :) – FumbleFingers Feb 05 '12 at 00:52
2

Even if is never followed by a future tense. The correct alternative is:

Even if only James Bond benefits from...

Frantisek
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    I agree you can make a case for saying that 'even if' is never followed by 'will' if the main clause itself contains 'will'. Example: "She will not succeed, even if she works from now until Christmas." But using 'will' after 'even if' seems perfectly acceptable in other constructions: "I think you should ahead with your plan, even if it will only benefit James Bond." – Shoe Jan 15 '12 at 19:33
  • I accept that some of these 3,180,000 written instances in Google Books of even if you will may not exactly match our current context, but I think you're way out on a limb if you think none of them do. Or that any that do are just "bad grammar". – FumbleFingers Jan 16 '12 at 00:21
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Hypothetical clauses that are headed by if (including even if) may only use the modal auxiliary verb will (or won't) in its Deontic sense of 'intend, be willing', and not in its Epistemic sense of predicted necessity.

  • Frank won't hand in his homework. (epistemic, a prediction)
  • If Frank won't hand in his homework, he'll tell you. (deontic, willing)
  • If Frank doesn't hand in his homework, there'll be trouble. (no modal, future)

Since there is no future tense in English, futurity is inferred rather than marked per se. Common constructions include be going to, the present tense (as here), or some modal auxiliary (will, may, can, should, must, etc).

John Lawler
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    If there’s no future tense in English, then what the devil do you call this? A future *BLAHBLAH*? I don’t think so. Calling it the future is perfectly fine. People are way too intense about ‘tense’ ≣ ‘one-word inflection’ around here. It smacks of Humpty-Dumptyism. What’s next? Pretending that present indicative and present subjunctive are the same tense, just different moods? That gets no one anywhere. – tchrist Jan 15 '12 at 23:09
  • There are exceptions to this rule; when the if-clause is still in the future when viewed from the perspective of the main clause. From the internet: "If you will not be able to attend a class, let the instructor know as soon as possible." – Peter Shor Jan 16 '12 at 00:36
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    @tchrist: I just like to use terminology correctly, just as many of us like to use English grammar correctly. There is a precise sense of tense, as you know, and then there is the use of tense that means "some feature of a word" and leads to usages like the passive tense, the subjunctive tense, the future perfect tense, the conditional tense, and even the plural tense. That's not helpful; you may not like the way I use the words, but I will continue to use them this way because it's the right professional way. – John Lawler Jan 16 '12 at 00:46
  • You may, just like me and everybody else, use grammatical terms any way you please. Feel free. I won't tell you how to say what you mean, but I may occasionally contribute a technical synonym; that's what we're all here for, as far as I can figure out. – John Lawler Jan 16 '12 at 00:48
  • @Peter Shor: Google books gives 5.7K hits for "if you will be unable to attend" against 74K for "if you are unable...", but I must admit the former sounds "better" to me. Obviously [whoever] wants to be informed as early as possible, so they'd want you to do this when your inability to attend is still "in the future" rather than waiting until it actually comes to pass. I know it all nets down to the same thing in the real world, but somehow the "will" version makes me think I'm dealing with people who run a tighter ship. – FumbleFingers Jan 16 '12 at 01:59
  • @JohnLawler What do you pretend the tense of ‘will see’ is?You cannot just pick it apart in isolation and call ‘will’ a modal and ‘see’ the bare/citation form and stop there,satisfied that that’s all there is to it—any moreso than you can dissect a frog and call the resulting goo a frog.The entire phrase ‘will go’ is in the future, and if you will not condescend to call it the future tense, that is your peculiar problem.Thousands of text books have no problem with doing so. It is a useful way of speaking of things without splattering everybody with frog guts.Just translate ‘tense’ to BLAH. – tchrist Jan 16 '12 at 03:12
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    Thousands of textbooks are spattered with frog guts, then. Too bad. I don't quite understand why terminology makes you so mad. But then there's lots of things I don't understand. Also too bad. If you really have questions, and don't just want to ask rhetorical questions, you are free to do so. – John Lawler Jan 16 '12 at 03:32
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    Technically it is correct to say that English has no future tense. Of course, using 'will' plus the infinitive is one way to refer to future time. But there are many other ways to refer to events in the future. It may therefore be unhelpful to the English language learner to refer to 'will + infinitive' as the future tense since this could imply that there is only one such tense or that 'will + infinitive' is the default way of referring to the future. – Shoe Jan 16 '12 at 06:38
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    Exactly. Many (most?) of our readers here are English learners, not native speakers, and they actually need the facts about the language. Which they get, in any decent ESL classroom. – John Lawler Jan 16 '12 at 15:19
  • @Tchrist & John: Isn't it just a matter of definition in the end? John appears to adhere to the principle that a tense cannot be synthetic. That is a valid choice; but what is the main argument behind it exactly? – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 03 '12 at 16:34
  • @Cerberus: To make the concept of tense precise and therefore useful, instead of using "tense" for anything in a sentence that vaguely reminds one of time, or of something one's third-grade teacher said about it. For instance, if will is future tense, what tense is may or should? Or gonna or oughta? Or tomorrow or soon or used to have to? The problem is not new. – John Lawler Mar 26 '12 at 23:38
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    @JohnLawler: Yeah I understand the disadvantage of allowing analytic tenses. Then I am interested in your opinion about other labels that usually refer to single words, but sometimes also to several words, like adjective (red, far(-)fetched), or noun (blackbird, high school). Would you always want to refer to high school as two words? Is the word barrier really the basis for that? Can a reliable distinction between morphology and syntax be made? I suppose will do has more freedom in word order than high school, though (can be split up). – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 27 '12 at 04:46
  • @JohnLawler: One more thing: a main argument for a analytic future tense is semantic symmetry. Our cultural perception of time divides it in past, present, and future. Of course the past tense is not always and not only about the past, but it is named after what we perceive as its most typical function, or the most typical part of its function. Just as a conjunction typically conjoins clauses, although it does not always do so. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 27 '12 at 04:47
  • @JohnLawler: Oh, and sorry to bury you in comments, but Latin also has many analytic tenses: all the passive perfect tenses are analytic, like vocatus est. Of course that is only a matter of convention, but the Romans no doubt did it for symmetry. And Greek has various "tenses" with a form of to be + participle too. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 27 '12 at 04:48
  • Sorry I missed these comments, @Cerberus. If I could, I'd add another answer here to deal with them (I think they deserve a good answer), but this is officially Closed and I can't do so. Too bad. – John Lawler Oct 15 '13 at 18:24