Past Perfect Conditional Statements

Prior Lesson

In this post we come to learn about ‘past perfect conditional statements’ and usage of ‘unless’ in conditional statements.  We use the ‘past perfect conditional statements’ only for past tense cases. In one past of the sentence we use ‘future in the past’ auxiliaries like would, have, ought to have, etc., and any past perfect or past perfect continuous form of verb in the other as shown in the following examples. 

1. Wouldn’t I have gone to the spot if you had told me earlier?

2. If the teacher had not guided me, I couldn’t have come in this position.

3. The doctor might not have stumbled upon this medicine if his patients had not been complaining about the ever increasing temperature.

4. The actors ought to have reported for shooting early this morning if the film Director had been reminding them about it for 2 days.

5. I could have killed that snake if I had had a stick in my hand.

6. You could have borrowed your friend’s notes if you had not attended relished it.

7. I must have put too much of salt in the fish curry if the guests had not relished it.

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Use of ‘unless’ in conditional statements.

‘Unless’ is equal to ‘if not’. Unless has a negative meaning.

Here are some of the examples:

1. Couldn’t you go to the practice classes regularly unless you were sick.

2. I shall go to the practice class unless I am sick.

3. I will spoil the pudding unless you stop your adverse criticism.

4. You should not play outside unless there was good sun-shine.

5. You would not come first in the class unless you had prepared well.

6. The crowd ought to have kept quiet unless they had disliked the speakers.

In the next post we would learn about ‘usage of never in a sentence’.