The conditional perfect is a grammatical construction that combines the conditional mood with perfect aspect. A typical example is the English would have written. The conditional perfect is used to refer to a hypothetical, usually counterfactual, event or circumstance placed in the past, contingent on some other circumstance (again normally counterfactual, and also usually placed in the past). Like the present conditional (a form like would write), the conditional perfect typically appears in the apodosis (the main clause, expressing the consequent) in a conditional sentence.
Read more about Conditional Perfect: English, Other Languages
Famous quotes containing the words conditional and/or perfect:
“Computer mediation seems to bathe action in a more conditional light: perhaps it happened; perhaps it didn’t. Without the layered richness of direct sensory engagement, the symbolic medium seems thin, flat, and fragile.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“The ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.”
—Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)