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A new usage, a different form of words, which has emerged in my lifetime, is exemplified in a quote from this interview with Terry Pratchett, which is interesting in itself and was brought to my attention by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cherylmmorgan:
"If I'd known what a progressive brain disease could do for your PR profile I may have had one earlier."
When I learned English, that "may have" was "might have," "might" being the past tense of "may" in that sense, but the two weren't interchangeable. The tense of the apodosis of the conditional sentence (the second half) depends on the tense of the protasis (the first half); the first half of this one is firmly set in the past, but the second half is anchored in the present, which creates a disjunction. Also,to say "I may have had one earlier" implies in the ordinary way that you possibly did but you don't know, which in the context is a very different meaning from the one TP presumably intended, which is that he would have considered possibly having one earlier (that, as Cheryl observes, is our Terry).
I am sure this is not simply a mistake on his part, because I've seen this construction creeping in all over the place. There's another one that I've noticed here and there, in which the protasis of the above sentence would be written "If I would have known..." which implies a secondary condition, a possible set of circumstances under which the knowledge would have been there.
"If I would have known what a progressive brain disease could do for your PR profile I may have had one earlier."
This, to me, is a complete mishmash of tenses and conveys nothing nearly as definite as:
"If I had known what a progressive brain disease could do for your PR profile I might have had one earlier."
And what I don't understand is the reason for the changes. Presumably some teachers are teaching English that way, possibly some manual of style somewhere enshrines these forms and gives them the weight of authority, but I don't understand why. I do remember reading somewhere that some editor, I think in America but I'm not sure, stoutly maintained that there is no such thing as the subjunctive mood in English (the subjunctive mood being the form of a verb that is used in such things as conditional sentences) but s/he was of course wrong, as those words "may," and "might," go to show.
It's puzzling.
cherylmmorgan:"If I'd known what a progressive brain disease could do for your PR profile I may have had one earlier."
When I learned English, that "may have" was "might have," "might" being the past tense of "may" in that sense, but the two weren't interchangeable. The tense of the apodosis of the conditional sentence (the second half) depends on the tense of the protasis (the first half); the first half of this one is firmly set in the past, but the second half is anchored in the present, which creates a disjunction. Also,to say "I may have had one earlier" implies in the ordinary way that you possibly did but you don't know, which in the context is a very different meaning from the one TP presumably intended, which is that he would have considered possibly having one earlier (that, as Cheryl observes, is our Terry).
I am sure this is not simply a mistake on his part, because I've seen this construction creeping in all over the place. There's another one that I've noticed here and there, in which the protasis of the above sentence would be written "If I would have known..." which implies a secondary condition, a possible set of circumstances under which the knowledge would have been there.
"If I would have known what a progressive brain disease could do for your PR profile I may have had one earlier."
This, to me, is a complete mishmash of tenses and conveys nothing nearly as definite as:
"If I had known what a progressive brain disease could do for your PR profile I might have had one earlier."
And what I don't understand is the reason for the changes. Presumably some teachers are teaching English that way, possibly some manual of style somewhere enshrines these forms and gives them the weight of authority, but I don't understand why. I do remember reading somewhere that some editor, I think in America but I'm not sure, stoutly maintained that there is no such thing as the subjunctive mood in English (the subjunctive mood being the form of a verb that is used in such things as conditional sentences) but s/he was of course wrong, as those words "may," and "might," go to show.
It's puzzling.