Tense Agreement in Conditional Sentences

Abstract

Tense agreement in conditional sentences is a research work which adopts the analytical method to identify the positions relevant to the topic. The aim is to answer the questions raised by the topic, to illustrate cases of agreement manifested in the context depending on a classification that takes the clause following the if-clause as a criterion, and to prove that tense in two verbs in the if clause and the flowing clause after a definitive negative article is not always future time oriented.

The main findings show the following: although traditional grammarians left to us a most respectable legacy, still we find certain generalizations that need to be reviewed and corrected. The function of the condition article – negative or otherwise – is limited to linking the two clauses in the conditional structure and to stipulate the necessity connection, unless the article is originally time-referring, a reference which will be clarified from the context, time of utterance, verbal or covert counterpart.

Since the time of the condition is future time, then the present tense which follows from this will be nothing but future too.