Conditional
The status of the conditional mood in English is similar to that of the future tense: it may be considered to exist provided the category of mood is not required to be marked morphologically. The English conditional is expressed periphrastically with verb forms governed by the auxiliary verb would (or sometimes should with a first-person singular subject; see shall and will). The modal verb could is also sometimes used as a conditional (of can).
In certain uses, the conditional construction with would/should may also be described as "future-in-the-past".
For uses of specific conditional constructions, see the sections below on simple conditional, conditional progressive, conditional perfect and conditional perfect progressive, as well as the section on conditional sentences (and the main article on English conditional sentences).
Read more about this topic: Pluperfect Progressive, Tenses, Aspects and Moods, Moods
Famous quotes containing the word conditional:
“The population of the world is a conditional population; these are not the best, but the best that could live in the existing state of soils, gases, animals, and morals: the best that could yet live; there shall be a better, please God.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“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)
“Conditional love is love that is turned off and on....Some parents only show their love after a child has done something that pleases them. “I love you, honey, for cleaning your room!” Children who think they need to earn love become people pleasers, or perfectionists. Those who are raised on conditional love never really feel loved.”
—Louise Hart (20th century)