Re: THEORY: Auxiliaries
| From: | Amanda Babcock <langs@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, December 30, 2002, 5:08 |
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On Sun, Dec 29, 2002 at 04:46:59PM -0800, Padraic Brown wrote:
> On the other hand, I don't see anything wrong
> with "I wanted to go, if I can."
That makes no sense to me, except as "I wanted to go; I wonder if I still
can". For me, in a past-tense context, "can" definitely has to become
"could". However, I think it's a different word from the "could" that is
both present and past tense and is somewhere between "can" and "might"
on the scale of likelihood (similar to how "lay" can be the present tense
of "lay" and the past tense of "lie").
Amanda