# if it did, it would have been...



## JungKim

The following is what a reporter said in a CNN news report (video):


> _But if North Korea *did commit* the Sony hack, analysts say it *would have been* done by a shadowy unit of the government called the Reconnaissance General Bureau, which they say conducts cyber warfare._



The context of the quote above is as follows: There are conflicting claims from both the U.S. government and a couple of cybersecurity firms as to whether North Korea was really behind the Sony hack. The U.S. government claims that it was, whereas the cybersecurity firms that it was not.

Question 1.
Is this a remote conditional? In other words, does this represent a hypothetical situation that the speaker feels is remote from the reality? Or is this an open conditional representing a reality that the speaker doesn't know for a fact?

Question 2. 
If this is an open conditional, is it possible to use 'will have been' instead of 'would have been'?
Is it possible to use 'must have been' instead of 'would have been'?
Or is it possible to use 'was' instead of 'would have been'?


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## Thomas Tompion

It represents a speculation; the analysts aren't sure whether or not North Korea committed the hack.

I'd say you could use *must have been*, and, at a pinch, *was*.


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## intolerandus

Wouldn't it be possible to use _might/could have been done_ in this case?


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## Thomas Tompion

intolerandus said:


> Wouldn't it be possible to use _might/could have been done_ in this case?


Yes, or _will have been done_.

All these varieties alter the strength of the causal link suggested by the speaker or writer.


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## MilkyBarKid

Message deleted.


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## intolerandus

Thomas Tompion said:


> All these varieties alter the strength of the causal link suggested by the speaker or writer.


   Can we—at least approximately—build a list, a gradation, as it were, of these phrases? I believe "was" represents the greater degree of confidence than "will have been done", and "must have been done" is somewhere in between them. Where "would/could/might have been done" will appear in this gradation?


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## MilkyBarKid

Experts have lingering doubts about North Korea's ability….

_But if North Korea *has **committed* the Sony hack, analysts say it *would have been* *done* by a shadowy unit...

__But if North Korea *did** hack* Sony, analysts say it *would have been* *committed* by a shadowy unit..._


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## JungKim

Thomas Tompion said:


> It represents a speculation; the analysts aren't sure whether or not North Korea committed the hack.
> 
> I'd say you could use *must have been*, and, at a pinch, *was*.







Thomas Tompion said:


> intolerandus said:
> 
> 
> 
> Wouldn't it be possible to use _might/could have been done_ in this case?
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, or _will have been done_.
> 
> All these varieties alter the strength of the causal link suggested by the speaker or writer.
Click to expand...



Thanks for your answer, TT.

I do agree with your analysis in context.

Thing is, though, never in a grammar book have I seen "would have been" or "could have been" presented as an example of an open conditional (a speculation as opposed to a hypothetical). 

What gives?


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## Thomas Tompion

JungKim said:


> Thanks for your answer, TT.
> 
> I do agree with your analysis in context.
> 
> Thing is, though, never in a grammar book have I seen "would have been" or "could have been" presented as an example of an open conditional (a speculation as opposed to a hypothetical).
> 
> What gives?


Conditional analysis is complicated and there are many bastard conditional forms (people using if-clauses to introduce things other than conditions) in everyday use.

The term 'open conditional' has been used by the Cambridge Grammar to talk of various sorts of bastard conditional forms, I think, as well as one or two true ones.  It's taken by many teachers to mean the zero conditional, a form which doesn't so much introduce a condition as an implied when-clause, so I'm inclined to avoid its use here for fear of misunderstanding.

If you want to talk about speculation, I'd rather we used the words _speculations_ or _guesses_, and banished talk of _open conditionals_, for these reasons.

I also find that the term's very occasional use here comes from people who usually present their tendentious views as facts, rather than opinions, and that makes discussion disagreeable.  They also often fail to distinguish between logical entailment and epistemic stance.

The whole question of the degree of certainty with which a speaker invests his words is particularly interesting in this field, and particularly difficult for learners.  That may be why you haven't come across those modal forms in your reading.

If you want a reasonably comprehensive discussion of these things and are not feeling dyspeptic, I recommend _The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language_ by Geoffrey Pullum and Rodney Huddleston.


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## JungKim

The only reason I used the term 'open conditional' as defined in the Cambridge Grammar is because there simply is no term for the OP's conditional construction under the traditional grammar (i.e., whatever you could find on the Internet, and most "mainstream" grammar books except for Cambridge Grammar). As you have pointed out, the zero conditional is not the term for the OP. And neither is the first conditional nor is the second conditional nor is the third conditional, and so on and so forth. (I'm not sure if there's the n-th conditional wherein n is larger than 3 in the traditional grammar, though.) Please enlighten me on this if I'm mistaken. Otherwise, I'd have to stick to the term 'open conditional' not because I'd like to cause any confusion with 'the zero conditional' or because I'd like to present my views as facts but because I have no other term available. But please feel free to avoid using the term 'open conditional'.

Now turning to the real issue, the Cambridge Grammar, which you recommend and I own a copy of, doesn't really show the OP's construction in their 'open conditional' discussion. I may have to double-check this but at least that's what I remember about the book's content. So unless I'm mistaken about its content, to go back to CGEL wouldn't answer any of my questions above. In fact, if it contained the answers, I wouldn't have asked here.


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## wandle

To isolate the conditional question, we can reduce the sentence to the following without affecting the sense:

_'If North Korea did commit the Sony hack, it would have been done by a shadowy unit'._

The past tense 'did' makes the if-clause an open condition, because it leaves the factual issue undetermined.
On this basis, the correct form in the result clause is 'will have been done':

_'If North Korea did commit the Sony hack, it will have been done by a shadowy unit'._

Thus one possible cause of the error is simply that the writer failed to appreciate the fact that an open condition means the issue is undetermined and felt that 'will' was too definite and for that reason modified it to 'would'.

Another way to correct the grammar is to suppose that the writer meant it to be a past closed conditional, but used the past tense instead of the past perfect. On that basis, the correct version would be:

_'If North Korea had committed the Sony hack, it would have been done by a shadowy unit'._

However, this is presumably ruled out by the context, which I take it requires the condition to be an open one, that is, factually undetermined.


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## JungKim

wandle said:


> _'If North Korea did commit the Sony hack, it would have been done by a shadowy unit'._
> 
> The past tense 'did' makes the if-clause an open condition, because it leaves the factual issue undetermined.
> On this basis, the correct form in the result clause is 'will have been done':
> 
> _'If North Korea did commit the Sony hack, it will have been done by a shadowy unit'._
> 
> Thus one possible cause of the error is simply that the writer failed to appreciate the fact that an open condition means the issue is undetermined and felt that 'will' was too definite and for that reason modified it to 'would'.



You called it an error to use 'would have been' in the open conditional. Should it be regarded as being erroneous on the part of the speaker even if this is spoken English (i.e., not a news report but a everyday conversation among everyday people)?

If you were to write this news article--or to say this in an everyday conversation--and felt that 'will' was too definite, how would you avoid making the same "error"?


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## Thomas Tompion

JungKim said:


> The only reason I used the term 'open  conditional' as defined in the Cambridge Grammar is because there simply  is no term for the OP's conditional construction under the traditional  grammar (i.e., whatever you could find on the Internet, and most  "mainstream" grammar books except for Cambridge Grammar). As you have  pointed out, the zero conditional is not the term for the OP. And  neither is the first conditional nor is the second conditional nor is  the third conditional, and so on and so forth. (I'm not sure if there's  the n-th conditional wherein n is larger than 3 in the traditional  grammar, though.) Please enlighten me on this if I'm mistaken.  Otherwise, I'd have to stick to the term 'open conditional' not because  I'd like to cause any confusion with 'the zero conditional' or because  I'd like to present my views as facts but because I have no other term  available. But please feel free to avoid using the term 'open  conditional'.
> 
> Now turning to the real issue, the Cambridge Grammar, which you  recommend and I own a copy of, doesn't really show the OP's construction  in their 'open conditional' discussion. I may have to double-check this  but at least that's what I remember about the book's content. So unless  I'm mistaken about its content, to go back to CGEL wouldn't answer any  of my questions above. In fact, if it contained the answers, I wouldn't  have asked here.


Hello JungKim,

I have never noticed you presenting your opinions as facts or muddling epistemic stance with logical entailment.  I'm sorry if I gave you that impression.

You ask me to return to the OP, and I will do so, without presenting my opinions as facts, or using the much-abused expression 'open condition', so here goes:





JungKim said:


> The following is what a reporter said in a CNN news report (video):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _But if North Korea *did commit* the Sony hack, analysts say it *would have been* done by a shadowy unit of the government called the Reconnaissance General Bureau, which they say conducts cyber warfare._
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Question 1.
> Is this a remote conditional? In other words, does this represent a hypothetical situation that the speaker feels is remote from the reality? Or is this an open conditional representing a reality that the speaker doesn't know for a fact?
> 
> Question 2.
> If this is an open conditional, is it possible to use 'will have been' instead of 'would have been'?
> Is it possible to use 'must have been' instead of 'would have been'?
> Or is it possible to use 'was' instead of 'would have been'?
Click to expand...

We are discouraged from putting answers in the passages quoted, so I'll answer the questions here:

Question 1. No, I'd say not.  I think the speaker feels that this is a distinct possibility. I'm not going to talk here about 'open conditionals' for reasons that I've given. 

Question 2.  Putting aside your initial condition, which I regard as too vague to be helpful, and which made me ignore the question initially, I reckon this boils down to asking for a reaction to these sentences:

_But if North Korea *did commit* the Sony hack, analysts say it *will have been* done by a shadowy unit of the government called the Reconnaissance General Bureau, which they say conducts cyber warfare.

But if North Korea *did commit* the Sony hack, __analysts say it *must have been* done by a shadowy unit of the government called the Reconnaissance General Bureau, which they say conducts cyber warfare.

__But if North Korea *did commit* the Sony hack,_ _analysts say it *was* done by a shadowy unit of the government called the Reconnaissance General Bureau, which they say conducts cyber warfare._.

I'm quite happy with all of them.  I think many educated natives could easily say any of them, depending on the degree of entailment of the consequence on the supposition which they wished to suggest.


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## wandle

JungKim said:


> You called it an error to use 'would have been' in the open conditional. Should it be regarded as being erroneous on the part of the speaker even if this is spoken English (i.e., not a news report but a everyday conversation among everyday people)?


Yes, just like a great deal of spoken English.


> If you were to write this news article--or to say this in an everyday conversation--and felt that 'will' was too definite, how would you avoid making the same "error"?


The first mistake lies in thinking that 'will' is too definite. I would not think that. The open condition (the if-clause here) means the factual question is undetermined. That means the result clause is also undetermined. Therefore 'will' may look definite, but in this context it is not.


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## Thomas Tompion

JungKim said:


> You called it an error to use 'would have been' in the open conditional. Should it be regarded as being erroneous on the part of the speaker even if this is spoken English (i.e., not a news report but a everyday conversation among everyday people)?
> 
> If you were to write this news article--or to say this in an everyday conversation--and felt that 'will' was too definite, how would you avoid making the same "error"?


Hello JungKim.  I don't think it's really an error, though I regard it as infelicitous.

What some people call 'open conditionals' are not conditional sentences at all, in my view, so you are not bound by the rules of tense-sequencing which apply to conditional sentences.

Remember that the English often use '*will'* to express probability rather than certainty:
_
Do you know where Charlie is?_ _ Oh! He'll be in the garden._
*
He'll be in the garden* is a lot less certain than* He is in the garden*.  The future carries the suggestion that investigation is likely to show that he is in the garden; it's almost as uncertain as *'You will probably find him in the garden'*.


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## JungKim

Thank you both, TT and wandle, for your respective answers.

Before jumping to the conclusion that the use of 'would have been' in the OP is erroneous or infelicitous, I would like to hear what AmE speakers have to say on this, the reporter being an AmE speaker and you guys a BrE speaker. Who knows? Maybe this is yet another AmE/BrE thing?


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## wandle

Pace *Thomas Tompion*, the use of the word 'open' for conditions which are undetermined seems well justified. 
The Oxford English Dictionary, among the many meanings of that word, includes the following:


> *open*
> 27.
> *a*. Of a matter, discussion, etc.: not finally settled or determined; that may be decided according to circumstances or at will; (hence) still admitting of debate, uncertain. Freq. in _open question_.


I do not believe there are any conditional sentences (sentences involving an if-clause) which are free of the standard rules. As far as I know, there is no difference in rules between the US and the UK. Of course, in practice, errors often occur in spoken and even in written English. The type and frequency of error may vary from one place to another, but I believe the function of a forum such as this is, among other things, to help maintain grammar rules.


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## JungKim

wandle said:


> The first mistake lies in thinking that 'will' is too definite. I would not think that. The open condition (the if-clause here) means the factual question is undetermined. That means the result clause is also undetermined. Therefore 'will' may look definite, but in this context it is not.



In defense of the use of 'would have been' as a less definite version of 'will have been' in the OP, I would argue that 'will' is no less definite merely because it's located in the apodosis of an open conditional. 

True, the whole open conditional construction may represent that the protasis--and therefore the apodosis--of an open conditional is undetermined. But the 'will' in the apodosis does not represent the definiteness of the whole open conditional construction or lack thereof. 

The 'will' represents the definiteness of the apodosis itself. And the apodosis is presented as definite within the logic of the open conditional, as it is the very nature of an open conditional that you accept the protasis as a fact and present the apodosis as an inevitable outcome resulting from accepting the protasis as a fact.


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## intolerandus

wandle said:


> To isolate the conditional question, we can reduce the sentence to the following without affecting the sense:
> 
> _'If North Korea did commit the Sony hack, it would have been done by a shadowy unit'._
> 
> The past tense 'did' makes the if-clause an open condition, because it leaves the factual issue undetermined.
> On this basis, the correct form in the result clause is 'will have been done':
> 
> _'If North Korea did commit the Sony hack, it will have been done by a shadowy unit'._


Is there any (theoretical) possibility that we are dealing here with the so-called 2nd conditional sentence (unlikely future event), i.e.

_If North Korea did commit the Sony hack, it would be done by a shadowy unit'_?


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## Thomas Tompion

intolerandus said:


> Is there any (theoretical) possibility that we are dealing here with the so-called 2nd conditional sentence (unlikely future event), i.e.
> 
> _If North Korea did commit the Sony hack, it would be done by a shadowy unit'_?


Do you mean in the original or one or other of the doctored versions?

If you mean the original, your suggestion is out of the question in my view.  We are clearly dealing with a hack which has already taken place, ie. which is certainly in the past.

Remember that the second conditional (*if he came, I would see him*) can also have a possible past, non-conditional meaning - *when he came, I used to see him*.

I'm afraid that is out of the question too, here, because that deals with a habit rather than a single instance in the past.


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## intolerandus

So it can only be open past conditional, I see. I don't understand, though, why we can use "might/could have been done" (#4) in the apodosis.


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## Thomas Tompion

intolerandus said:


> So it can only be open past conditional, I see. I don't understand, though, why we can use "might/could have been done" (#4) in the apodosis.


It must be past, in my view.

I've no idea what you mean by 'open' here.  The adjective is mightily misused and misunderstood in this context.

I'm sorry to see you have ignored the caveats.

We can use *might/could have been done* because, I think, we are not  dealing with a true conditional construction, so we are not subject to the normal constraints governing tenses.

  Maybe that's what you  mean by an 'open' conditional; that's what many people take it to mean.


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## intolerandus

_Open_ means that we see the action described in the sentence as real and therefore the indicative form of the verb is used. I don't believe we can use *could/might have been done* here, it would be as improper in terms of English semantics as *would have been done*.


Thomas Tompion said:


> I'm sorry to see you have ignored the caveats.
> 
> We can use *might/could have been done* because, I think, we are not  dealing with a true conditional construction, so we are not subject to the normal constraints governing tenses.


  I have carefully re-read the whole thread, and I have to say that I do not see any grounds at all not to recognise the sentence in question as a conditional.


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## wandle

intolerandus said:


> _Open_ means that we see the action described in the sentence as  real and therefore the indicative form of the verb is used. I don't  believe we can use *could/might have been done* here, it would be as improper in terms of English semantics as *would have been done*.
> 
> I have carefully re-read the whole thread, and I have to say that I do not see any grounds at all not to recognise the sentence in question as a conditional.


I quite agree.


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## wandle

JungKim said:


> In defense of the use of 'would have been' as a less definite version of 'will have been' in the OP, I would argue that 'will' is no less definite merely because it's located in the apodosis of an open conditional.


I am afraid I must simply disagree here. The meaning depends on the context. The context in this case is set by the open condition. 'Open' means undetermined: thus the semantic, factual meaning of the whole is undetermined. In other words, we do not know whether it is true or not.


> The 'will' represents the definiteness of the apodosis itself.


Yes, but this point is limited by the fact that the apodosis is dependent upon the protasis. The conclusion cannot see further, so to speak, than the if-clause. The conclusion in the apodosis is a logical consequence only. It simply says 'if A, then B'. That does not make B a fact. No amount of logic can create a fact which is at variance with reality.

The reality in this case is that the author does not know whether North Korea committed the hack or not. That is  due to a lack of information, not brainwork. No amount of logical reasoning can decide that issue when the information is simply not available. 


> it is the very nature of an open conditional that you accept the protasis as a fact


On the contrary, it is the very nature of an open conditional that you do _*not*_ accept the protasis as a fact.

That is the whole point of it. The apodosis is subject to the protasis and the protasis is undetermined. 
Therefore the whole sentence is undetermined. 
The writer's error in the topic sentence comes from not fully recognising this.


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## wandle

Thomas Tompion said:


> I've no idea what you mean by 'open' here. The adjective is mightily misused and misunderstood in this context.


I submit that 'open' is quite clear in this context. It means 'undetermined' and it is properly applied to a factual issue which is unresolved.
Please see the OED definition posted earlier. It includes the example 'open question': we can say that every open condition is an open question.


> ...  I think ... we are not dealing with a true conditional construction, so we are not subject to the normal constraints governing tenses.


 Again I am afraid I disagree. I can only observe that it is a conditional construction because it employs an if-clause and a result clause (protasis and apodosis); and the normal rules apply.


> Maybe that's what you mean by an 'open' conditional; that's what many people take it to mean.


I see no sign that *intolerandus*  means that. I have never known anyone else to suggest it either.


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## JungKim

wandle said:


> JungKim said:
> 
> 
> 
> The 'will' represents the definiteness of the apodosis itself.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, but this point is limited by the fact that the apodosis is dependent upon the protasis. The conclusion cannot see further, so to speak, than the if-clause.
Click to expand...


Sorry, but I'm not following you as to how this "limitation" is actualized in the modal 'will'.

It is clear to me that the 'will' is there to provide a logical link between the protasis and the apodosis. (It's not like the 'will' has a dual function or anything.)
It is also clear to me that 'was' can replace 'will have been' in the OP to provide a tighter logical link between them.

If you're right about the "limitation", then shouldn't the same "limitation" apply to the "was" as well? But can it?


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## wandle

JungKim said:


> If you're right about the "limitation", then shouldn't the same "limitation" apply to the "was" as well? But can it?


The link between the clauses is logical: the limitation on the apodosis is factual, i.e. semantic.
In a conditional proposition, the result clause (apodosis) depends logically upon the if-clause (protasis). 
Therefore it cannot express anything which goes beyond the factual limits of the if-clause. That applies to every conditional proposition.

In the present case, the if-clause is undetermined: we do not know whether North Korea did the hack or not.
Consequently, this limitation applies also to the result clause. It too cannot tell us whether North Korea did the hack or not.
After reading the result clause, we still do not know the answer to that question (though we have gained other information).

This limitation applies just as much in the case of 'it was' as 'it will have been'.


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## kalamazoo

I can't really follow this discussion but I am an AmE speaker and I don't see anything wrong with the original sentence. My interpretation is that there is a shadowy unit in N Korea that has responsibility for doing  this kind of hacking. Therefore if the hacking was done at all by N Korea, this is the unit that would have been responsible for doing it. The only uncertainty is whether N. Korea did the hacking or not.


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## wandle

That is certainly the meaning. 


> _But if North Korea *did commit* the Sony hack, analysts say it *would have been* done by a shadowy unit of the government called the Reconnaissance General Bureau, which they say conducts cyber warfare._


The problem is simply that the verb 'would have been' has the past tense form 'would' instead of the correct form 'will'.


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## JungKim

Even if you're right about the existence of such a limitation, that does not necessarily allows you to dismiss the use of 'would' as an error. If 'would' is somehow not correct, that's not because the 'will' is made less definite by the limitation you claim exists but because of some other reason(s).

Now I'm going to prove that the existence of such a limitation would not allow you to dismiss the use of 'would' as an error. 


wandle said:


> That applies to every conditional proposition.
> ...
> This limitation applies just as much in the case of 'it was' as 'it will have been'.



Even if there is such a limitation, the limitation is inherent in a conditional as you have suggested. And the limitation applies just as much in the case of 'would have been' as 'was' or 'will have been'. 

In other words, if the 'will' in the OP is somehow less definite than the 'will' in a non-conditional construction, then the 'would' in the OP is also less definite than the 'would' in a non-conditional construction. Therefore, the limitation itself does not render erroneous the use of 'would have been' in the OP.


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## kalamazoo

I would think that 'will have been' is a future perfect tense, so what tense is "would have been"? It's not exactly a past tense or is it?  Also to me the 'would' instead of 'will' introduces a very small element of speculation and is very slightly less definite than 'will.'  So to me in this sentence "would" is tantamount to 'will likely.'  Anyway the original sentence doesn't bother me.


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## wandle

JungKim said:


> Even if you're right about the existence of such a limitation, that does not necessarily allows you to dismiss the use of 'would' as an error.
> ...
> Therefore, the limitation itself does not render erroneous the use of 'would have been' in the OP.


  I have not said or suggested that that inescapable limitation of an apodosis is the reason why 'would have been' is wrong.
'Would have been' is wrong because it belongs to a counterfactual past conditional, not to an open one. 

The correct grammar for the counterfactual past is: _'If North Korea *had committed* the hack, it *would have been done* by a shadowy unit'_. 
In this case, the writer means that North Korea did not commit the hack.

The correct grammar for the open past is: _'If North Korea *did commit* the hack, it *will have been done* by a shadowy unit'_. 
In this case, the writer means that he does not know whether North Korea committed the hack.


The semantic limitation inherent in the apodosis is relevant to the subsidiary question of how the writer came to make the error:


wandle said:


> Thus one possible cause of the error is simply that the writer failed to appreciate the fact that an open condition means the issue is undetermined


It may be that he wrote 'would' instead of 'will' because he did not fully appreciate the inevitable limitation which applies to the apodosis.
Of course, that is only a speculation. There could be other explanations.


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## kalamazoo

I am probably in way over my head here, but isn't will have been done' a future perfect tense? Then what tense is 'would have been done."


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## wandle

'Will have been done' is the future perfect tense. It is not used only for future events.
It is also used to express conclusions from present or past events, when we do not know all the facts, but we expect that we will or may find them out later. 

Thus the sentence _'If North Korea did commit the hack, it will have been done by a shadowy unit'_ is equivalent to saying:
_'If North Korea did commit the hack, it will (when all the facts are known) turn out to have been done by a shadowy unit'_.


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## Loob

kalamazoo said:


> I can't really follow this discussion but I am an AmE speaker and I don't see anything wrong with the original sentence. ...


Kala, I'm with you: I don't see anything wrong with it either.


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## JungKim

wandle said:


> 'Would have been' is wrong because it belongs to a counterfactual past conditional, not to an open one.



I was looking for some threads that say that 'would have + past participle' is also possible in an open conditional. And I found this thread.

There, the open conditional was





> 4) Speculation: "_If she left at 7:00_, she would have arrived by 8:00" (We don't know when she left, but we can choose a time as an example, and determine her arrival time based on that example. Our example _may _be counterfactual; we simply don't know.)



And the following is what you said in that thread:


wandle said:


> For a speculative sentence, you need either 'She would have arrived by then' or 'She will have arrived by now'. E.g.:
> 'She left here at 3:00, and the journey takes no more than two hours, so she will have arrived by now.'
> or:
> 'She left yesterday at 3:00 on a two-hour journey. The meeting was due for 6:00, so she would have arrived by then.'



So have you changed your mind since 2012 or is there any difference between that thread and the current one?


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## wandle

Those examples of mine are of speculative sentences, not conditional sentences.
I was offering examples for case (2) in post 1 of that  thread.


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## kalamazoo

Thanks, Loob, I was starting to feel like a grammatical #fail


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## JungKim

wandle said:


> Those examples of mine are of speculative sentences, not conditional sentences.



In your example, she left at 3:00 (yesterday), and the meeting was due for 6:00 (yesterday), and we don't know for a fact if she arrived by 6:00. But we can speculate that she would have considering it takes only two hours for her to get there.

So you essentially said in that thread that it's possible to describe the situation in an open conditional like this:
_If she left at 3:00, she would have arrived by 6:00._

I don't see any difference between this and the current thread.


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## wandle

As I have stated, my examples in the earlier thread were not examples of conditional sentences.

The original post in that thread raised two cases: 
(1) counterfactual (which relates to conditional sentences) and (2) speculative (which does not relate to conditional sentences).

My response related to (2) only. I said nothing there about conditionals in any way.


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## JungKim

wandle said:


> As I have stated, my examples in the earlier thread were not about conditional sentences.
> I said nothing there about conditionals in any way.


At the very least you did say that it possible to use the 'would have past participle' construction in a speculation as well as in a hypothetical/counterfactual. 

If the construction can be used in a speculation, then why shouldn't it be allowed in an open conditional, which essentially represents a speculation?


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## wandle

A sentence which is simply speculative and does not contain a conditional clause does not need to follow the rules of a conditional sentence.
If a sentence contains an if-clause, it does need to follow the conditional rules.

The rules for constructing condtional sentences are in some respects arbitrary, counter-intuitive and even (arguably) illogical.
We will be disappointed if we expect a simple, clear, logical scheme. This is a sad fact which means the rules in some respects have to be learned as rules rather than deduced from constant premises. It is not mathematics.


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## intolerandus

JungKim said:


> If the construction can be used in a speculation, then ...


What makes you think so? 
We know for sure that the hack has already happened, therefore *did commit* is past indicative, and you cannot use any form of the subjunctive in the apodosis.


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## JungKim

wandle said:


> The rules for constructing condtional sentences are in some respects arbitrary, counter-intuitive and even (arguably) illogical.
> We will be disappointed if we expect a simple, clear, logical scheme. This is a sad fact which means the rules in some respects have to be learned as rules rather than deduced from constant premises. It is not mathematics.



I have never expected the English language to be non-arbitrary, intuitive, or logical, let alone as straightforward as mathematics (Not that it is). So there is no disappointment. At least not for me. Nor is there anything sad about having to learn any rules as long as they are really the rules without any untold exceptions lurking behind and coming back to haunt you later on. On the contrary, if merely learning some rules could save me the trouble of all the reasoning to figure out what's possible English, then I'd be more than happy to learn them as rules. And perhaps I don't have to come back here to post another question. Rules will have all the answers, won't they?

Problem is, more often than not, the rules aren't really the rules. Let's just take the rules for a conditional. You say that 'would have been' is not possible English for the apodosis of an open conditional "according to the rules".

But that's not the end of the story. First, there's the American reporter who used 'would have been' as shown in the OP. And then there's the AmE speaker who thinks that 'would have been' in the OP is okay:


kalamazoo said:


> I can't really follow this discussion but I am an AmE speaker and I don't see anything wrong with the original sentence. ...


And then there's the BrE speaker who confirms what the AmE speaker says:


Loob said:


> kalamazoo said:
> 
> 
> 
> I can't really follow this discussion but I am an AmE speaker and I don't see anything wrong with the original sentence. ...
> 
> 
> 
> Kala, I'm with you: I don't see anything wrong with it either.
Click to expand...


To make the matter worse, the Cambridge Grammar, perhaps the most comprehensive and recent grammar, doesn't really say anything about whether 'would have been' in the OP is possible or impossible, although it does not show a single example of 'would have+ past participle' being used in the apodosis of an open conditional.

So I'm not really impressed when you simply claim that they're the rules.


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## wandle

JungKim said:


> I'm not really impressed when you simply claim that they're the rules.


Thank you anyway for taking my comments as seriously as you have. I have often felt, though, that you tend to read more into my posts than I am saying. I have been responding to specific points, rather than offering general rules.

*intolerandus* identified the key point:


intolerandus said:


> We know for sure that the hack has already happened, therefore *did commit* is past indicative, and you cannot use any form of the subjunctive in the apodosis.



Anyhow, here are the two basic rules as I understand them.

(1) _In open (also called real) conditionals we use the *indicative* in both clauses because we are making plain factual assertions, not suppositions which are contrary to fact or probability._

(2) _In closed (counterfactual or remote) conditionals, on the other hand, we use *subjunctive* forms in order to make suppositions which are contrary to fact or probability, rather than plain factual assertions._

To produce a parallel to the topic sentence, here are examples of predictive statements in open and closed conditionals. 
First in a present context (spoken on Monday at 2:15 pm, in relation to a 2:30 meeting):

(a) Present open (real): _If Jones *is* in the building, he *will attend* the meeting_.
The speaker does not know whether Jones is in the building now (that question is open), but predicts that, in the event that he is, he will attend the meeting.

(b) Present closed (counterfactual) _If Jones *were* in the building, he *would attend* the meeting_.
The speaker knows Jones is not in the building now (that question is closed), but states that, on the supposition that he were in the building, he would attend.

Secondly, putting these examples into the past (spoken on Tuesday in relation to the previous day's meeting):

(c) Past open (real): _If Jones *was* in the building, he *will have attended* the meeting_.
The speaker does not know whether Jones was in the building on Monday (that question is open), but predicts that, in the event that he was, the facts will show that he did attend.

(d) Past closed (counterfactual): _If Jones *had been* in the building, he *would have attended* the meeting_.
The speaker knows that Jones was not in the building on Monday (that question is closed), but states that, on the supposition that he had been in the building, he would have attended.

The answer to the question "What tense is 'would have attended'?" (see *Kalamazoo's* post 32) is a little complex: 
first, this is the subjunctive form of the future perfect 'will have attended' (this subjunctive uses the same form as the past tense: 'would' instead of 'will'); 
secondly, the future perfect indicative 'will have attended' was used in sentence (c) because it is a prediction within an open past conditional; this is converted into the future perfect subjunctive 'would have attended' in sentence (d) because it is now in a counterfactual past conditional.

The factual situation envisaged by the topic sentence corresponds to example (c), not example (d), which is why I say 'would have been done' is an error.


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## thetazuo

Hi. After reading through this thread, I still don't get why the "would have" in the original op example is wrong. An open past conditional can certainly adopt the pattern "If+simple past, (then) subject+would have past partciple", as in "If King’s Landing mourned its dead boy king, Jaime would never have known it. " If King’s Landing mourned its dead boy king...

Is it because in the original op example, the main clause is not a consequence of the condition but just a speculation?
Could anyone explain it? Thank you.


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## Loob

thetazuo said:


> After reading through this thread, I still don't get why the "would have" in the original op example is wrong.


As I said in post 36, I don't think it is wrong, thetazuo.


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## thetazuo

Thanks, Loob. It seems it’s debatable whether the op example is correct.


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## manfy

Interesting thread! I also see nothing really wrong with the OP.

I'm a little bit surprised that nobody mentioned the idea of reported speech, though.
Consider this:
Analyst says: "_If North Korea did commit the Sony hack, it *will have been* done by a shadowy unit of the government called the Reconnaissance General Bureau._"    -> This is a prediction by an analyst that is based on his/her experience on North Korea and it is embedded in an open conditional.

CNN reporter reports this prediction in proper reported speech: "_But if North Korea did commit the Sony hack, analysts say it *would have been done* by a shadowy unit of the government called the Reconnaissance General Bureau_"
I read the open condition "If North Korea did commit the Sony hack" as a general truth. At that point in time nobody knew who really did it, but everybody knew that it had been done by somebody. Therefore there is no need for the reporter to mark it as reported speech by changing it to "if North Korea *had committed.*..". Come to think of it, this backshifting would actually skew the original statement by the analyst because with backshifting it becomes a closed conditional.
Anyway, what follows is "analysts say it *would *have been done..." and that's a textbook example of reported speech, isn't it?


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## JungKim

manfy said:


> Anyway, what follows is "analysts say it *would *have been done..." and that's a textbook example of reported speech, isn't it?


When the reporting verb 'say' is in the present tense how could 'would' here be a backshifted counterpart of 'will'?


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## manfy

JungKim said:


> When the reporting verb 'say' is in the present tense how could 'would' here be a backshifted counterpart of 'will'?


Well, I would backshift anyway to mark reported speech.
When the reporter says "analysts said" as an an introductory phrase, it expresses that some specific analysts said the statement that is being reported at a specific time or times in the past.
When the reporter says "analysts say", it expresses the general sentiment of several analysts; it describes a more persistent state of opinion (as opposed to a single specific opinion expressed in the past). So, there's no direct semantic link between the tense of the introductory phrase and the tense of the reported statement.

But granted, I'm not a native English speaker and with German being my native tongue, I'm not a strong believer in tense congruence. My mind extracts information from spoken or written sentences based on logical connection between the individual parts of speech.

I just skimmed through the British Council site on reported speech. Sure enough, they don't mention any of that. They conveniently always use simple past in the introductory phrase (she *said*/they *thought*/he *mentioned*). 

I'd be interested to hear native speakers' views on that - not necessarily in form of a simplified and generalized textbook rule, but more in the sense of what 'feels right' when they use reported speech with a past introduction (they said that...) and a present form (they say that...)


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## Loob

I wouldn't, myself, expect backshifting in present-tense reported speech:
_She said: "I'm happy."
>> She said she was happy.
She says: "I'm happy."
>> She says she's happy._

So, no: I wouldn't see the _*it would have been done *_in the topic sentence as a reported-speech backshifting of_* it will have been done.*_


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## JJXR

manfy said:


> When the reporter says "analysts said" as an an introductory phrase, it expresses that some specific analysts said the statement that is being reported at a specific time or times in the past. When the reporter says "analysts say", it expresses the general sentiment of several analysts; it describes a more persistent state of opinion (as opposed to a single specific opinion expressed in the past).


Here's a sentence from another thread in which there's reported speech that follows the pattern you're talking about:


kentix said:


> _10) A Washington Post story published in 1970 *says* 50 people *had died* the previous year while exploring the Sahara desert._


I've seen similar sentences, so I think your theory has the right to live.


manfy said:


> CNN reporter reports this prediction in proper reported speech: "_But if North Korea did commit the Sony hack, analysts say it *would have been done* by a shadowy unit of the government called the Reconnaissance General Bureau_"


But anyway, if there was no reported speech in the sentence in post #1, it would still be correct with either "will have been done" or "would have been done":

_If North Korea did commit the hack, it *will have been done* by a shadowy unit_. 
_If North Korea did commit the hack, it *would have been done *by a shadowy unit_. 

I think it all amounts to this: the former implies greater certainty, whereas the latter implies less certainy on the part of the speaker. This post and this post in another thread contain links to examples of conditional sentences both with "will have (been) + past participle" and "would have (been) + past participle" in the main clause.


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## JungKim

JJXR said:


> Here's a sentence from another thread in which there's reported speech that follows the pattern you're talking about:


This is what kentix himself explained about example (10):


> _10) A Washington Post story published in 1970 *says* 50 people *had died the previous year* while exploring the Sahara desert._
> 
> The newspaper story from the past reported on *an event even farther in the past*, so past perfect can be used.


So I think the past perfect *had died* was used by kentix, not because of the reporting verb _*says*_, but because of _*the previous year*_ (1969), which is one year further in the past than 1970.


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## Loob

thetazuo said:


> It seems it’s debatable whether the op example is correct.


I think wandle was the only person who saw it as incorrect. And his reasoning appears to have been that "would have been" was appropriate only for past counterfactual (ie Type III) conditionals. I may have misunderstood him, and it has been some time since he visited the forum, so I can't ask him for clarification. But if that was his argument, then I disagree with it.


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## JJXR

manfy said:


> I read the open condition "If North Korea did commit the Sony hack" as a general truth. *At that point in time* nobody knew who really did it, but everybody knew that it *had been done* by somebody.





JungKim said:


> So I think the past perfect *had died* was used by kentix, not because of the reporting verb _*says*_, but because of _*the previous year*_ (1969), which is one year further in the past than 1970.


As I understand it, manfy's "at that point in time" is like "1970" in kentix's example, then manfy uses the past perfect "had been done" which relates to an event further in the past than the "point in time" he introduced earlier. With this in mind, the following can be said ("say" in the sentence below is in the historical present):

_Everybody knew at that point in time that it had been done by somebody. Analysts *say* that it *had been done* by a shadowy unit ._

At least, that is how I understand the point he outlined in post #50. I think the example below (this link) is similar to the one above in this respect, with the exception that there's no reported speech there.


Forero said:


> _I *come* into the room. I *look* around. I *had forgotten* my glasses. I *couldn't* see any details, or any bugs on the floor._ [Historical present in the first two sentences]


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## JungKim

It's irrelevant what manfy or somebody else said _about _the sentence.
What's important is that we have _*the previous year*_ in the sentence itself, which can trigger the use of the past perfect, whereas no such phrase that can trigger the use of the past perfect is present in the OP's sentence.


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## newname

You asked two questions. Both have been answered.  Even natives disagree with each other so you can stop your search here.


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