If He Would Have and If He Didn't

Abstract

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<em>“I Wish I Would Have Known!”</em>: The Usage of <em>Would Have</em> in Past Counterfactual <em>If</em>- and <em>Wish</em>-Clauses

“…Would have in past counterfactual wish-clauses is also documented in Molencki (1998Molencki ( , 2000 and Hancock (1993). Molencki's examples date back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.…”

“…Some speculate that the usage of would have is "made in America" (Fillmore, 1990, p. 143;Quirk et al, 1985Quirk et al, , p. 1011 or possibly characteristic of a Midwestern dialect (G. Yule, personal communication, October 17, 2000). While Hancock (1993) draws upon written English examples from contemporary American newspapers dating from the 1970s to the 1990s, Molencki (2000) finds examples of would have in subordinate clauses in prestigious newspapers in both the United States and Britain. And of course we have already seen examples from British English (Examples 10, 11).…”

“…In speech, I would have is often contracted to /aidǝ/ (Quirk et al, 1985(Quirk et al, , p. 1012. The spoken representation of would have is spelled as 'd have, 'd'a, 'd a, or 'd of (Boyland, 1995;Hancock, 1993;Lambert, 1986;Quirk et al, 1985;Webster's Dictionary of English Quirk et al, 1985;Webster's Dictionary of English Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, 1994). Since such contractions are homonymous to those of had have ('d have), it is impossible to know whether such contractions should be uncontracted as would have or had have (Fillmore, 1990, p. 153).…”

Tense and Time in Counterfactual Conditionals

“…In informal American English, however, would have is not infrequent (even in print) as a substitute for the past perfect -see Tedeschi (1981: 261) and Hancock (1993). A problem for checking the frequency of this use of would have in spoken British English is that the form is usually contracted to 'd have, which makes it indistinguishable from one of the contracted forms of had have (the others being had've and hadda).…”