Have Had, Had Have

{ 20040712,1324 | David Peterson }

"I'm not sure if you realized you wrote this, or if it was an accident,
but you just gave me some evidence of something I say exists, but no
one in the department believes exist: Using *two* modal "have"'s. I do
it often when I say something like, "I would've had to've had eaten".
And above you wrote: "If Philip had've said..."   The intention is (I
believe): (1) To reference a time in the past; (2) with respect to that
time in the past, to reference a time *further*in the past; and (3)
within *that* time frame, reference a completed action, with respect to
the second time frame. Is that right?"

I also say things using this kind of extended construction. "I would've
had to have eaten" would be the use of a kind of 'pluperfect' or
'perfective within a past context'. However, the construction eludes me
a bit because the "would've" is a conditional past - as in "if i had
wanted to go, i would've..." plus the use of the "had to have Xed",
which is saying that at said time, I must have already eaten.

Basically, I don't know if it satisfies the requirements of two modal
haves. Can someone give me some grammatical suspenders for my pants,
please?

emily
*************************
I don't think you can understand capitalism if you don't understand
zombies. And that's why geeks make the best revolutionaries. - China
Miéville, British Marxism Conference 2004

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