# EN: If it were to occur, it had/would have to lapse



## zanida

Hello dear Wordreference champs!

I would need a native grammar geek to call a judgement on the debate we are having between editors.
Here is the sentence that is troubling us: 

"*If evolution were to occur, natural selection had to lapse.*"

the use of "had" here seems controversial, some of us say it is fine, although not common, and has a specific meaning that cannot be replaced or modified, while some of us say it is just bad sequence of tenses and should be reworded as:

"*If evolution were to occur, natural selection would have to lapse.*"

So? What do you say???

Thank you so much for helping me out, and very impatient to read the answers!


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## Omelette

Sorry to be uncontroversial, but both sentences seem correct and natural to me. Personally, I can see no difference in meaning. Your first sentence has one less word in it.


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## Kelly B

I have a strong preference for #2, purely as a grammatical matter - the statement itself doesn't make any sense to me.


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## Omelette

I'm surprised you see a problem in the grammar of #1 . I wonder what it is.


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## moustic

What is the French sentence you have to translate?
I'm surmising that this is a hypothetical statement.


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## JeanDeSponde

Omelette said:


> I'm surprised you see a problem in the grammar of #1 . I wonder what it is.


Same as Kelly: grammar may (or may not) be OK, but meaning is beyond me.


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## OLN

moustic said:


> What is the French sentence you have to translate?


J'allais poser la même question. 
Mis à part que le raisonnement m'échappe dans les deux versions*, je ne comprends pas le sens particulier qui rend _had_ irremplaçable dans la phrase n°1. 

Pour moi pauvre francophone, le temps passé après une condition au présent la rend carrément incompréhensible . Veux-tu bien expliquer ce sens, en anglais ou en français ? (and who is "us"?)

*Il y avait certainement une phrase plus simple pour illustrer une question de grammaire.


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## Maître Capello

L'hypothèse est nécessairement irréelle puisque le verbe est au subjonctif passé (_if it *were*_). Dans ce cas, comme en français, il faut un conditionnel dans la principale. Je ne vois donc pas non plus comment _had_ pourrait être correct pour respecter la concordance des temps. Si le verbe de l'hypothèse était au simple past, il en serait autrement :_

If evolution *was* to occur, natural selection *had* to lapse._


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## zanida

Pardon de mon retard à vous répondre, et merci à tous de vous être penchés sur ma question.

Il s'agit effectivement d'un texte scientifique, et d'un passage qui spécule sur des hypothèses (qui sont ou non démontrées plus avant dans le texte en question).

Nous sommes plusieurs à travailler sur ce texte (d'où le "us" ) d'un point de vue éditorial, il n'est pas censé être traduit, mais autant les anglophones que les francophones de l'équipe n'étaient pas très à l'aise avec l'usage des temps, sans pour autant pouvoir fournir une explication grammaticale vraiment solide en faveur d'un choix ou d'un autre.

Il semble beaucoup plus clair désormais, et les deux seules solutions grammaticalement correctes sont celles-ci, effet de style ou non: 

_If evolution *was* to occur, natural selection *had* to lapse
__If evolution *were* to occur, natural selection *would have* to lapse

_However, If an English native feels the need to correct this, or has a strong reason to believe that "If evolution *were* to occur, natural selection *had* to lapse" is indeed a correct formulation, please come forth!_
Et merci à tous encore une fois! 
_


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## Omelette

I disagree with Maître Capello's assertion and I think that, in this instance, English is more flexible in its use of tenses than he believes.
However, I certainly agree that _'If evolution were to occur, natural selection would have to lapse_' is correct.  So why not use it?


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## Grade11IB

To me, the first one seems past tense and the second future tense, therefore - assuming you are talking about evolution (the past) - number one seems more correct.


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## OLN

Maître Capello said:


> L'hypothèse est nécessairement irréelle puisque le verbe est au subjonctif passé (_if it *were*_). Dans ce cas, comme en français, il faut un conditionnel dans la principale. Je ne vois donc pas non plus comment _had_ pourrait être correct pour respecter la concordance des temps.


C'est tout aussi tranché pour moi.
_If I were you [but I'm not], I would ..._ (false antecedent: counterfactual conditional, subjunctive conditional).

Zanida, peux-tu demander à ton entourage d'élaborer cette phrase « the use of "had" (...) has a specific meaning that cannot be replaced  or modified » ?


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## Emma Frost

This is conditional sentences
There are 3 main kinds of conditional sentence:
1. True in the present: If + V, S + will + V (If the weather is fine, we will go camping -> we will absolutely go out if the weather is fine)
2. Untrue in the present: If + Ved, S + would + V (If I were a boy, I'd roll out of bed in the morning -> Beyonce is not a boy, and she will not do the thing in her song)
In (2), to be will be "were" for all subjects -> this is subjunctive clause.
3. Untrue in the past: If + had + Vii, S + would have + Vii (If I had bought it yesterday, i would have won a prize -> I didn't buy it then I didn't win anything yesterday)

(1) can use without will, in order to emphasize the undebatable truth (if I am hungry, I eat a lots)

There are 2 other forms of conditional sentences, which are called the mixed ones:
1. Mix (2) and (3): If + Ved, S + would have + Vii (If I didn't love her, I wouldn't have married her -> at the present I still love her, so that in the past I married her)
2. Mix (3) and (2): If + had + Vii, S + would + V (If I had listened to your advise, I would be rich now -> at the past I didn't do it, so now I am not rich)

To your sentences:
"*If evolution were to occur, natural selection had to lapse.*" This is false.

"*If evolution were to occur, natural selection would have to lapse.*" This is true, mix (2) and (3)


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## whackerican

Perhaps this link can be of some assistance here.


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## Emma Frost

whackerican said:


> Perhaps this link can be of some assistance here.


In untrue conditional sentences, to be is always "were".


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## e2efour

Unfortunately, this is not correct.
_Was _or _were_ can both be used in hypothetical clauses when they refer to the present or future.

_If evolution were/was to occur, natural selection would have to lapse _is the only grammatical possibility I can see (whatever the sentence means ).

_"_had to lapse" can only refer to the past and makes no sense to me.


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## Emma Frost

A schoolboy has written to Justin Bieber 'correcting' the grammar in Boyfriend
In Justin Bieber's song, he sang if i was you, and a little boy explained that is not correct. You should see my previous comment:

[Moderator note: unnecessary repetition of said previous comment removed.]


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## e2efour

Since no explanation has been given of the verb _lapse_, I can only say what the sentence appears to mean.

1. _For evolution to occur, national selection was needed. _(This at least makes sense. )
2. _If evolution were to occur, natural selection had to lapse. _(This is nonsense since evolution has occurred. Also what does _lapse_ mean? We need to write _would_ _have to <verb>_)

If the sentence is talking about the past, we might write as follows. This assumes that the person writing this sentence imagines being on the planet before evolution occurred!
3. _If evolution was to happen, natural selection had to occur. _(Not a very good way of expressing sentence 1.)


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## Emma Frost

[quote judiciously, and trim the quote to the relevant portion of the message]

3. _If evolution WERE to happen, natural selection would occur. In untrue conditional sentence, to be is always "were" for all subjects (subjunctive mood), and in the second clause we use "would".
2. If evolution were to occur, natural selection would be collapsed (I think it is typing-mistake between lapse and collapse)
1. For evolution to occur, national selection was needed. -> This is acceptable._


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## e2efour

You seem to have missed my mistake of writing _national_ instead of _natural selection. _

The grammatical structure of the sentence in #1 is like _If Yehudi Menuhin was to become a proficient violinist, he had to have a violin._
(_If he were to become_ is impossible, since he did become a violinist. The statement is not a hypothetical or unreal one; compare _If he was (were_) _surprised, he didn't show it._)


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## Thomas Tompion

We seem to be imagining a world which existed some time back in history, and seeing how evolution must have occurred.

If I'm right in this supposition, we must try to avoid _'if evolution were to occur'_ because the subjunctive suggests that it was not possible that it should occur.  However, in English, we can say _'if evolution was to occur_' which happily leaves the possibility open.

What tense should the main clause take then?  Obviously the conditional -_ if evolution was to occur, natural selection would have to lapse_ (the process of favouring traits condusive to survival would have, somehow, to stop working).  That takes one back to the time immediately before the lapse in natural selection triggers the advance in evolution.

_If evolution was to occur, natural selection had to lapse_ suggests a pressing need at the precise moment in the past we are concerned with.  The failure to observe traditional tense-sequencing (type-II) conditional, will provoke cognative problems in educated listeners.  Nevertheless, I expect many speakers of British English would use this, in my view, sub-standard form.

One of the problems in all this is that natural selection is a major element in the process of evolution.  If it were to lapse, we wouldn't expect evolution to operate effectively.

It's a bit like saying _If the child was to grow properly, we would have to stop feeding her_.


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