Hi everyone,
I find "if he would have come, we would have gone ...." acceptable but marked
(informal) with the volitional meaning in the hypothetical clause.
Other than that, I guess we are really talking of oral structures, with
auxiliary reduction (near compulsory for the modal auxiliary and radically so
for the perfect auxiliary).
-If I'd 've known / If I'd 'a known
I would be tempted to say quite categorically that the above structure is highly
unlikely in formal speech, and most certainly ruled out in formal written
English (British or American).
Best regards,
Marc
Selon Parveen Lallmamode <parveenqb@hotmail.com>:
> Thank you all for your input, specially to Ramesh, Jean-Charles and Mark.
>
> I find it difficult to digest this construction even though I am not a
> prescriptivist. In Br Eng, we find the following construction for
> conditionals:
>
> If + past tense, ... would (verb). [if he came, we would go ....]
> If + past perfect, ... would have (+ past participle).[if he had come, we
> would have gone ]
>
> While in Am Eng, I was told that the conditionals can take the following
> forms:
>
> If + would (verb), ... would (verb). [if he would come, we would go ...]
> If + would have (+ past participle), ... + would have (+ past participle).
> [if he would have come, we would have gone ....]
>
> I am interested in more genre-related data for the 'if + would + would'
> grammatical construction. For example, I would like to know if these
> constructions are really a standard practice and whether we can accept them
> in formal academic writing.
>
> Thank you much in advance.
>
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