Overview
The unreal past applies the unreal mood to theoretical past scenarios. The unreal mood indicates that the stated actions, events, or states are not believed for certain to have already taken place. The unreal past might communicate a possible situation whose fulfillment is unknown, or it might convey an utter fantasy.
Unreal situations are not necessarily false; they simply aren’t assumed or confirmed to be realized yet. The unreal mood can express what we suspect, hope, or suggest has happened, but not what is known to have happened (which would instead be in the realis mood).
The unreal past is regarded separately from other unreal timeframes because of the complex considerations of the word forms involved, as well as for the quasi-tense Future-in-the-Past.
Methods
Past Modals
A speaker can employ modal auxiliaries to express what they suspect is likely true (epistemic mood), what they believe is right or best (deontic mood), or what the subject is willing to do (volitional mood). Any of those may also express hypothetical situations.
Epistemic, deontic, and volitional modal verbs (both core modals and marginal modals) are followed by have to indicate the past. These may be referred to as ‘Perfect Modals‘:
could have • may have • might have • must have • should have • will have • would have
(had) better have • need have • ought to have • would rather have
Whatever verb follows must then be in the Perfect Participle form.
For negatives, place a negator like not or never between the core modal and have. As a shortcut, the contraction n’t can be affixed to the core modal. For the marginal modals, we say “had better not have”, “needn’t have”, and “ought not to have”.
For each of these core modals and marginal modals, we can also contract ‘have’ with the preceding word, as in could’ve, might’ve, or ought to’ve.
For example, “The thief might’ve escaped through the window,” conveys a past likelihood, and “You shouldn’t have yelled at her,” conveys a recommendation contrary to what actually happened.
There are a few caveats to be aware of:
- Can have is rarely used for past. Some dialects use it in the epistemic sense, but others do so only when negative (‘can’t have’). We do not use can have for deontic or volitional moods, instead using could have.
- We use may have for epistemic and volitional, but not for deontic, where it can be replaced by might have.
- Must have can be used as epistemic. However, it is not used as deontic — there are several possible substitutes, but had to and needed to are the most popular.
- It’s rare to use shall have since it’s used for strong immediate determination and not for reflection.
See the relevant modal verb pages for details.
Verb Patterns
Verb Patterns are pairs of verbs in which the first is directly acted upon by the subject while the second verb — in the form of a participle or an infinitive — is indirect, though the second is often more relevant to the context.
Since the second verb (known as the verbal complement) is indirectly affected, it is often unreal — that is, it may not be understood or confirmed to have actually happened. Here are some examples:
- “The council had nominated Martha to lead the new committee.”
- “Sheryl longed to visit Spain.”
- “The project manager contemplated starting over.”
- “Bradley was pretending to enjoy the meal.”
For each of these, we know that the first verb was carried out, but not necessarily the verbal complement. Martha was nominated, but it’s not yet been confirmed whether she did in fact lead the committee (perhaps she declined the nomination, or perhaps there was an interruption before her confirmation). We know how Sheryl felt, but it’s unlikely she had visited Spain yet. The listeners have no idea whether the project manager ultimately decided to start over. And the final sentence seems to indicate that Bradley did not actually enjoy that meal.
Verbal complements in the Full Infinitive form are usually in the unreal mood; verbal complements in the Active Participle form can be unreal, but they are more often real.
To make Verb Patterns past, the first verb should be placed in a past form, while the second should remain unchanged.
Future-in-the-Past
Future-in-the-Past is a quasi tense construction that might also be called Past Prospective.
With most so-called future tenses, the speaker actually communicates intentions or expectations about what happens later, but those intentions and expectations themselves usually occur in the present. For Future-in-the-Past, we instead shift those plans and predictions into the past.
For example, “I am going to throw a party!” indicates a present plan about a future event (the party). If instead the speaker says, “I was going to throw a party,” they are referring to a past plan, though the party still took place in the hypothetical future from the planner’s original perspective.
Most of the time Future-in-the-Past is used, it implies that the planned or expected event was never realized. Perhaps the planner changed their mind, or perhaps there was some interruption that changed the course of events, as in “The home team was about to win the game, but the wind changed direction and helped the visitors to an eleventh-hour victory.”
The form of Future-in-the-Past is similar to most of the phrases used for Future Plans or Future Predictions, except that the leading auxiliary (or the earliest verb within that verb phrase) takes on its past form. For example:
- “were/was going to …”
- “were/was about to …”
- “were/was planning on …”
- “were/was hoping to …”
- “were/was expected to …”
- “were/was supposed to …”
Instead of will, we use would have in main clauses, as in “The home team would’ve won the game, but the wind changed direction.” For embedded clauses, we could instead use would, as in “Zadie said that she would meet us here at 6pm.” We can make similar changes with other modal auxiliaries.
While the plans or expectations themselves are set in the past for Future-in-the-Past, it may be ambiguous when the planned or predicted events take place relative to now. While they would’ve been in the future from that past perspective, from the current perspective they could have already passed by now (past), or perhaps they still haven’t happened (future), or maybe they’re currently in-progress (present).
Consider the example of “Zadie said that she would meet us here at 6pm,” with a few different scenarios:
- The speaker says this at 5:45 — Zadie may or may not meet them in fifteen minutes.
- The speaker says this at 8:30 — Zadie never showed up.
- The speaker says this a week later — Zadie met them on time, but the point of the speaker’s story might be on the waiting or the messaging.
Backshifted Subordinates
Verb phrases in embedded clauses may be backshifted when in the unreal mood (which form what are known as subjunctive subordinate clauses). Backshifting means making the form of the verbs one step toward the past compared to the verb’s meaning.
For the unreal past, a past verb is backshifted into the Past Perfect tense.
We use backshifting for hypothetical scenarios in Conditionals. Consider the example “If it hadn’t rained on Saturday, we would’ve gone to the beach.” Here, ‘hadn’t rained’ denotes a past event. In this situation, we can assume that it did rain on Saturday, and thus the speaker did not go to the beach.
We also use backshifting after cognitive verbs (like think, believe, expect, etc.) for counter-factual or unrealized scenarios. In the example, “I thought Jean had left,” the speaker might be expressing their surprise after finding out that Jean didn’t leave after all.
When expressing relief or regrets about the past, a backshifted subordinate clause may follow bouletic expressions like ‘if only’, ‘I wish’, or ‘imagine if’.
Applications
We use the unreal past in:
- counter-factual hypothetical statements, including Conditionals
- deductions
- cancelled or altered plans
- faulty or thwarted expectations
- regrets, relief, and reprimands
Colloquialisms
- English speakers often shorten the modal verb / have pairing, especially when spoken aloud. Here are possible ways they may be pronounced (or perhaps even spelled, though the last two would be erroneous):
- could have | should have | would have
- could’ve | should’ve | would’ve
- could of | should of | would of
- coulda | shoulda | woulda
- In very casual speech, some English speakers shorten ‘going to’ as ‘gonna’.
- Some of these unreal past forms are tricky even for native speakers. In fact, there are many English speakers who do not use these methods, but instead count on context cues to communicate the unreal past. Most commonly, a speaker might ignore the backshifting of a subordinate clause (like saying “If it didn’t rain on Saturday, we would’ve gone to the beach.”). While this may not strictly be grammatically correct, it is perfectly acceptable in certain dialects or among some communities.
Further Reading
| Related Concepts | Applied Grammar Topics |
|---|---|
Intermediate Topics
CEFR Levels B1-B2: Pre-Intermediate to Upper Intermediate courses
