A Corpus Analysis of Would-Clauses without Adjacent If-Clauses

Abstract

This article reports the findings of a corpus analysis of a grammatical structure taught in intermediate- or advanced-level ESL/EFL texts: clauses that contain the modal would to signify hypothetical and counterfactual meaning. Contrary to the way these structures are represented in ESL/EFL textbooks—as would-clauses adjacent to conditional clauses with if—these corpus data indicate that would-clauses in counterfactual/hypothetical environments occur more often quite distant from or entirely without any corresponding if-clauses. Often the hypothetical and counterfactual conditions are present but are marked in ways other than by prototypical if-clauses. The study categorizes the conditional and hypothetical uses of would-clauses in spoken and written corpora, and it offers pedagogical suggestions based on the findings.