Chino Alpha
His mouth would have given despair Hi. a) His mouth would have given despair to even the drollest of fools; it was a mouth made for frowns and scowls and sharply worded commands, ... I've just looked up the word "counterfactual" in dictionaries and found it has two meanings: 1) refer to what is contrary to the facts of an event, situation, etc. 2) refer to events that did not happen If I understand correctly, all (implied) third conditionals express counterfactuality. But some of them express both sense 1) and 2) while some others express just sense 2). So sense 1) is not the intended meaning of the example sentence. Instead, a) expresses just sense 2). Is my thinking right? Thank you.
Nov 19, 2017 3:24 AM
Answers · 3
You are right! Would have is past participle so it never happened in sentence A. Great job.
November 19, 2017
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