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Suppose Jeff was born on 1/1/1982. He went missing a long time ago. At the present time, he could be either dead or alive, but nobody knows for sure:

1 "If Jeff is still alive today, he is 30 years old."
2 "If Jeff is still alive today, he will be 30 years old."
3 "If Jeff is still alive today, he would be 30 years old."

Which one is standard English?

Nortonn S
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  • Me, I would say “Suppose Jeff were* born on . . .”*. It’s similar to “Suppose he were already married by then; what would you do in that circumstance?” – tchrist Jun 18 '12 at 19:55

5 Answers5

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The only one that is correct in the scenario you present is #1:

If Jeff is still alive today, he is 30 years old.

The is in the first clause corresponds to the is in the second.

I'd say that numbers 2 and 3 (If Jeff is still alive today, he will be 30 years old and If Jeff is still alive today, he would be 30 years old) would work in speech, but not in writing. The will be and would be give a sense of speculation, but grammatically they do not correspond to the is in the first clause.

JAM
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    This answer is wrong. You cannot use "is" in the result clause because it is a conditional statement, and the "is" contradicts the 'if'. Of the 3 choices the OP gives, "If Jeff is still alive today, he will be 30 years old." is the most correct. – Roaring Fish Jun 18 '12 at 16:10
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    @RoaringFish hm, OK interesting, but I disagree. I wouldn't balk at "If Jeff is still alive today, he will be 30 years old" in speech. But if I were to say, for example, "If that car really is 15 years old, it's running very well," you're saying that this would be incorrect, and that I should say "If that car really is 15 years old, it will be running very well"? I don't think so... – JAM Jun 18 '12 at 16:23
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    It is a different situation. In your example you can see the car running well so it is not conditional on the car being 15 years old. In the OPs sentence Jeff being 30 years old is conditional on him still being alive. – Roaring Fish Jun 18 '12 at 16:32
  • @RoaringFish I'm not so sure age is dependant on being dead or alive. I suppose it depends on how one thinks of age. Is age a relationship between "year of death" and "year of birth" or is it a relationship between "current year" and "year of birth"? For the most part, it seems humanity uses the latter. – Sephallia Jun 18 '12 at 17:40
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    This answer is wrong. Sentence #2 is correct per the OED sense 15c for “will” v.1. All you folks who think will has a terribly restrictive sense should please, please read the entire OED entry for the word: you will be surprised, and perhaps even astonished. – tchrist Jun 18 '12 at 20:08
  • In the conditional, I really don't see the need for simple future to describe something that if the predicate is true, is possibly true currently as well, since the age described is in years. The use of simple present makes sense unless one is being pedantic about what part of the year the anniversary occurs. On the other hand, it is in common use, and it's probably how I'd say it, so let's chalk this one up to English being totally fucked. –  Jun 19 '12 at 14:27
  • @Sephallia I think that for the most part I consider something as not aging when it's dead unless we're talking about fermentation/spoilage or watching a crime drama. I do think it is totally stupid to say this date would be so-and-so's nth birthday, unless subject is someone you lost and are reminiscent of. –  Jun 19 '12 at 14:31
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The most common form is "If X is [true/whatever], Y is [true/whatever]".

But "If X is [true/whatever], Y will be [true/whatever]" is neither invalid, nor uncommon. You can interpret such use of "future tense" as implying that Y follows X (logically, or temporally, it makes no difference). Alternatively, see it as meaning that Y will be found to be true if/when you come to examine the matter closely.

OP's third version does occur, but it's a non-standard mixture of tenses. The "correct" version using would is "If Jeff were [to be] still alive today, he would be 30 years old". It's an example of future subjunctive, which I believe is a declining usage; non-native speakers can generally ignore it.

FumbleFingers
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  • I agree will is just fine. Barrie or John would have some fancy term for this kind of thing. By the way, the “If Jeff were” thing certainly looks like past subjunctive to me, not future. Certainly if you translate it into Romance, you get a past not a future subjunctive when the other clause is in the conditional. Contrast “Si fuera así, te lo diría” (If it were so, I would tell you so; past subjunctive) vs the archaic “Aunque él me quitare la vida, en él confiaré” (from Job 13:15: Although He should take my life, in Him shall I trust.” future subjunctive). Portuguese has modern examples. – tchrist Jun 18 '12 at 19:51
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    I can't imagine why Fumblefingers calls that a "future subjunctive". – Colin Fine Jun 18 '12 at 22:40
  • The future subjunctive is were + to-infinitive. I know FumbleFingers has inserted a 'to be still alive' in there, but 'were' is already the past subjunctive form of 'to be', so it is pretty much a tautology. Like all subjunctives, it also has to be counterfactual, so Jeff would have to be positively dead to make the use of any form of subjunctive in the condition statement accurate. – Roaring Fish Jun 19 '12 at 09:44
  • @RoaringFish I strongly disagree with your assertion that were+to-infinitive somehow makes up a “future subjunctive”. It does not. This is still just a past subjunctive. PROOF: “If I were you” and “If I were to say” are exactly the same; only the complement differs, not the verb. Please make a formal study of a language that actually has a true (read: inflected) future subjunctive as distinguished from a present subjunctive or past subjunctive, such as Portuguese, and then get back to us to delete your erroneous comment. – tchrist Jun 19 '12 at 12:04
  • @tchrist,RoaringFish,Colin Fine: "We will lend you the money to buy this house, but if you were to be* made redundant and thus be unable to afford the monthly repayments, we would seek a forced repossession". I don't have any problem with that. English doesn't really have much of a simple future tense, let alone a subjunctive one. But there's definitely more scope for using "were to be"* rather than "were to have been" when you're talking about future states (or current/past states which will not be known until some point in the future). – FumbleFingers Jun 19 '12 at 12:48
  • @tchrist - Wiki "future subjunctive is constructed using the past subjunctive form of the verb "to be" plus the to-infinitive": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive ~reference.com "future subjunctive can be constructed using the conjugated form of the verb "to be" plus the infinitive": http://www.reference.com/browse/Subjunctive_mood ~Grammarist "The future subjunctive would look like this:If I were to become President in 20 years, I wouldn’t put up with it.": http://grammarist.com/grammar/subjunctive-mood/ – Roaring Fish Jun 19 '12 at 13:26
  • @tchrist - what you are failing to understand is that we dealing dealing with English here, not Portugese or Spanish or anything else, and English verbs inflect for time only, not for mood or aspect. They are marked in other ways. Your argument that 'it doesn't exist in English because it is not like that in Portugese' is basically meaningless. – Roaring Fish Jun 19 '12 at 13:30
  • @RoaringFish: Well, I didn't intend to stir up a hornet's nest regarding grammatical terminology when I said the "correct" version of OP's third example would be "future subjunctive". Call the different tenses what you like, but I stand by my assertion that OP's third example "mixes tenses", which my version doesn't. – FumbleFingers Jun 19 '12 at 13:32
  • @FumbleFingers - English doesn't have a future tense at all. As the future is uncertain, talking about it is done in degrees of certainty and hence has no verb inflections. – Roaring Fish Jun 19 '12 at 13:34
  • @FumbleFingers, I am agreeing with you that there is a future subjunctive - no terminology issue from me! Where I disagree is whether it is the right one to use here. Future subjunctive is counterfactual, so poor Jeff would have to be dead. We don't actually know if he is, so I wouldn't choose a subjunctive mood for the conditional statement. – Roaring Fish Jun 19 '12 at 14:08
  • @RoaringFish: I'm not convinced future subjunctive is counterfactual is a bulletproof "rule". So far as I'm concerned it can also be used of as-yet-unknown states. If schrodinger's cat were to be found dead, that would be sad, but not surprisingly counterfactual. It's more a matter of not definitely established to be true, rather than definitely established to be not true – FumbleFingers Jun 19 '12 at 14:20
  • Schrodinger's cat is not real. It is counterfactual which is why you can use subjunctive. If it were a real cat, you would have to use 'is'. If you don't like 'counterfactual', think of it as thought-events but whatever the terminology, the whole point of the subjunctive is to mark it as irrealis. Jeff, for the purposes of this discusion, is real. Or at least I see it that way. If you want to continue this, maybe move it to chat? – Roaring Fish Jun 19 '12 at 15:41
  • let us continue this discussion in chat – FumbleFingers Jun 19 '12 at 16:02
  • @RoaringFish The OED says that will is sometimes used as an auxiliary of the future tense in English, so clearly you are confused with your silly claim denying its existence. You also are confused about English having in contrast a future subjunctive, which is nonsense. I suggested you actually bother to learn what a future subjunctive is. Apparently you need to learn what a future tense is, too. English has a future tense; it has no future subjunctive. – tchrist Jun 19 '12 at 18:08
  • @tchrist: Inter alia, I previously upvoted your answer saying "I’ve never before heard English described as somehow having a future subjunctive". And my general position is that English doesn't really have a "future tense" in the same way as some other languages. But so far as I'm concerned, there is a mode called "subjunctive", used to express various states of unreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred. Perhaps "tense" just isn't the right word here, future or not. – FumbleFingers Jun 19 '12 at 20:28
  • @FumbleFingers I agree that a distinctive subjunctive form exists, and I don’t mind calling it a tense. But I still see no reason to pretend that English somehow has a future subjunctive, or that it uses a future one where other IE languages use a past one. Old English had no future subjunctive. It had present and past. That’s all we have now, and then only barely. People seem to be making up bizarre analyses here, and with no justification. Not even Latin had a future subjunctive, let alone English. We didn’t suddenly grow one on our own out of nothing. These are present and past OE forms. – tchrist Jun 20 '12 at 01:55
  • @tchrist ~ "The so-called "future" of English in "will" is a misnomenclature, will being a present-tense modal verb that has its primary reference to probability based on "will", and can refer to past, present and future". More: "English does not have a dedicated future tense — that is, a grammatical form that, when used, always indicates futurity — nor does it have a form that is mandatory for the expression of futurity." BTW, subjunctive is a mood, not a tense. Learn the difference. – Roaring Fish Jun 20 '12 at 09:15
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The first two are both standard English.

The third would require were in the first clause to be brought up to standard.

tchrist
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  • ,,,and change the meaning. – Tim Lymington Jun 18 '12 at 16:30
  • Actually, I think the third is ok ... heck, I think it is the best of the three. The first just hits my ears wrong for a conditional. For the the 2nd one is wrong unless his birthday is still ahead ... If he is still alive, he will be 30 next week. The whole thing is conditional on him being alive, so for me that throws the whole phrase into a conditional and needs the 'would'. ... BTW, adding 'were' tells me that he is dead and, as Tim said, changes the meaning. – AnWulf Sep 05 '12 at 15:40
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If Jeff were still alive today, he would be 30 years old.

is correct.

RegDwigнt
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Jose
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    Welcome to [english.se]. This answer lacks any explanation or references. Please include those in any answer. Thanks. – MetaEd Mar 25 '13 at 12:03
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The normal expression would be "he will be 30 years old".

"If Jeff were alive today, he would be 30 years old." "As Jeff is still alive today, he is 30 years old." ( not one you would use, but shows the point )

"is" gives too much certainty, "would" is too speculative.

Schroedingers Cat
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  • That isn’t right. You cannot have was in the if clause if you have would in the then clause. You must have were to match would. – tchrist Jun 18 '12 at 19:44
  • Edited to correct. Although most people would also say "was", as i had originally written, were is more accurate. – Schroedingers Cat Jun 19 '12 at 10:18