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Can we use both would have and would in non conditional past statements? For example:

Last year during the summer, I would go home on weekends. past habitual

Last year during the summer, I would have gone home on weekends.

Last year during the summer, I would have completed three projects every month.

What are the differences between these usages? And how to differentiate if it's conditional or not?

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Noah
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  • I've edited your last example, partly to remove the typo, and partly because there's no point in having extra words that contribute nothing to either the sense or the grammar that you want us to consider. – FumbleFingers Apr 16 '12 at 23:31

2 Answers2

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Last year during the summer, I would go home on weekends.

As OP correctly says, past habitual - he usually/always went home on weekends. No problem.

Last year during the summer, I would have gone home on weekends.

As TimLymington says, native speakers might be tempted to interpret this as an incomplete statement, with the unstated continuation "...but because of [some excuse] I didn't". But that's only because we're struggling to find any way to make sense of a rather unlikely utterance, so I suggest we consider a simpler one...

Last Friday night I would have gone to the pub.

Again, it's possible there's an unstated "...but my wife wouldn't let me."

But if the speaker had just been asked "Where were you last Friday night?", it would be a perfectly normal and complete reply. In such a context, the speaker may be implying that he's normally in the pub on Friday nights, so he would have been there on that particular occasion. Or he may be implying that although he's not absolutely certain, it would turn out that he was there, if the matter were to be investigated more thoroughly.

Last year during the summer, I would have completed three projects every month.

This one somewhat complicates the issue, because three projects every month automatically creates a past habitual context. Native speakers don't feel tempted to assume there's an unspoken "...if I hadn't lazed around the pool every day.", though they might expect a follow-on along the lines of "but I think I could only manage two projects a month this year."

The fact of the matter is that whatever the textbooks say, people often use would have [verbed] in that way. Semantically, there's no real difference between OP's version and...

Last year during the summer, I would complete three projects every month.

...or indeed...

Last year during the summer, I completed three projects every month.

As pointed out, these are not good examples for getting to grips with usage of would [have], because phrases like during the summer and three projects every month blur the focus on exactly what time we're talking about, and what exactly might have been habitually repeated.

FumbleFingers
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  • Thank you for the well written response. But I am still confused. Last year, I would sit in my room, open my Facebook, and by the time I realized, I would have* wasted 3 hours. Why can't we use would here instead of would have? It can be inferred from your and TimLymingtons' explanations that these usages are not very common, and native speaker might tend to avoid it. If that's the case, how would we translate something like this to a past tense: Next month I will have completed my first running competition by this time. I am sorry if I sound naive. – Noah Apr 17 '12 at 02:24
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    @Noah: Your "Next month I will have..." makes little sense to me. Your idea of linking "next month" to "this time" isn't something most people do. Perhaps you mean "a month from now" (i.e. on [or about] the same day within the month as today). You often complicate things unnecessarily in your examples - you should look to cut out any elements that aren't part of what you really want to analyse. – FumbleFingers Apr 17 '12 at 02:52
  • Yea, a month from now. But you didn't answer my questions. – Noah Apr 17 '12 at 03:37
  • For example, a month from now I will have married her. – Noah Apr 17 '12 at 03:39
  • @Noah: That's better! You'd cast that into past tense as either "A month from then/later* I married her"* (simplest, and most common). Or in a more unusual context, perhaps, "I reluctantly agreed to meet my 'blind date', little realising that a month later I would have married her". But I'd advise you to avoid that second version. There are sentences where it can work, but this example isn't really one of them - mostly it just ends up seeming "clunky". – FumbleFingers Apr 17 '12 at 12:45
  • If we're determined to avoid the simple past, a more natural phrasing for that example would be "I reluctantly agreed to meet my 'blind date', little realising that a month later we would be married". – FumbleFingers Apr 17 '12 at 12:48
  • Thanks. I have one more question that bothers me out of curiosity: Last year, I would sit in my room, open my Facebook, and by the time I realized, I would have wasted 3 hours. In this example, I was told that I couldn't use would and would be better to avoid would, but if for some reason I wanted to, I couldn't go with would, it had to be would have. Why not would? – Noah Apr 17 '12 at 13:04
  • As Barrie said, by the time I would is ungrammatical regardless of whether you follow it with have or not. But you're getting bogged down because you're trying to build complex past tense habitual constructions that even native speakers tend to avoid. If you want to sound fluent, you'd do better learning how to avoid using would for habitual past (in many cases, "I used to" works better, and is easier). – FumbleFingers Apr 17 '12 at 13:26
  • What a wonderful explanation! I wish I could have seen it two years ago. :) However, even if I had seen it at that time, I would have missed the gist of it. I asked a similar question: http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/55409 By the same token, do you think that "have" in the "that would have been it" is also superfluous? @FumbleFingers – Kinzle B Oct 05 '15 at 01:04
  • @Kinzle: No - I think only careless/uneducated speakers would say Until 1998, this would be it (curiously, Until 1998, that* would be that* sounds "better", but that's probably only because That's that, then! is something of a fixed expression). I'm not sure how to explain this fully in a comment, but I don't think it's a matter of present / past - you could say, for example, I would have been holidaying in Teneriffe next week, but my passport has expired, where would have been refers to a future / unreal action. – FumbleFingers Oct 05 '15 at 12:34
  • Oddly enough, that snippet was written in the narrative present tense. I knew your point, which you commented here: http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/26363 :) If you find a long comment discouraging, could you answer that 55409 question? @FumbleFingers – Kinzle B Oct 05 '15 at 12:56
  • @Kinzle: Although I consider myself a competent speaker, I'm not well-versed in the terminology or syntactic categorization system implied by your question Is "would have been" the backshifted* form of "will have been"?* Anyway, I've added a bounty to that earlier question - please edit your Q text there if you think it might help us get to the bottom of things. – FumbleFingers Oct 05 '15 at 13:21
  • @FumbleFingers Actually I'm not a fan of jargon either. I'll edit it to include more of what I thought about recently. :) – Kinzle B Oct 05 '15 at 14:00
  • Come to think of it. Were you saying the intended meaning was "this would have gone on to be it forever if the 1998 Russian financial crisis hadn't roiled the market" in the original text? But that "Until 1998" there prevents such reading, I suppose. @FumbleFingers – Kinzle B Oct 06 '15 at 09:48
  • @Kinzle: That's a very detailed assumption of implicit meaning which only arises from the semantics of the full text. The actual syntax of Until yesterday, that would be that simply implies that since yesterday, whatever process was previously described (i.e. - "that") is in some way *different, extended. Usually, the difference would be being something additional, rather than a completely fresh approach, since That's that!* means There is no more. It's over and done with. – FumbleFingers Oct 06 '15 at 12:04
  • You mentioned "Until 1998, this would be it" sounded unnatural. Is it because the sentence on its own sounded unnatural or it might sound good in other context but just a poor match for this particular context? If so, how about "Until 1998, this used to be it"? @FumbleFingers – Kinzle B Oct 06 '15 at 12:17
  • @Kinzle: It's very confusing addressing point in comments here that not only relate to a different question - it's even on a different SE site! When I said I found *it* idiomatically "strange", I specifically pointed out that (for me, at least) it would be more natural to use *that* rather than *it. Partly because That's that!* is an idiomatically established usage (although so is *That's it!, to a lesser extent). But mainly because that* is more "remote" than *it* (or *this*), and we're talking about something "away" in the past. – FumbleFingers Oct 06 '15 at 12:25
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I'd say the answer to your first question is No, which renders the rest moot. Your first example, as you say, is expressing a habit rather than a specific action. The second should really be a conditional, but might be taken as a self-deprecating enthymeme, with "but I only managed it once or twice" (or something similar) understood; should have would be better. I have no idea what your third example would mean. (Would there being enthymemic conditional; ...if it were a grammatical sentence.)

Tim Lymington
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  • Swan's book say that we can. What alternative would you recommend to the first one? I don't see this to be conditional, for example: Every time in the summer, I would go home, and before I realize, I would have wasted all my time. – Noah Apr 16 '12 at 23:25
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    @Noah: Neither I would have nor I would is an alternative to I did. Each of them can be used in certain rare contexts, but before you try to tackle those, you would be better off getting the simpler things right, such as says rather than say and where you can use alternative for and alternative to. – Tim Lymington Apr 17 '12 at 15:34
  • Thank you for commenting that out. I didn't understand the alternative for and alternative to part? Am I using it incorrectly? Google Books spit out a large usage of the same structure. Any idea? – Noah Apr 17 '12 at 16:03