Real and unreal situations are mixable?
If you were here, you should not worry.
I mean the sentence can have two different meaning depend on the situation?
In the first case,
if you were here, you should not worry
unreal present + unreal present/future
for examle, if you were here - with me - you should not worry - because you will be able to see that everything is fine.
In the second case,
if you were here, you should not worry
real past + unreal present/future
for instace, if you were here - as you say, during the time of the murdering - you should not worry - but you seems to be nervous.
Search from various English teachers...
Answers · 4
1
Statements of the unreal situation are mixable. That is true.
If you were here, you should not worry. I had not noticed how the unreal present has the same wording as the real past. You are correct. Peti 2 becomes the teacher.
0
Actually, the word "if" stops it from ever being "real" past. It's still a possibility. The closest answer (and this is probably what you were looking for) is that you suppose "if you were here" to be a very real possibility. In speech, "were" would have a very strong accent. It'd have been less confusing if your examples had been "If he were here, he should not worry."(subjunctive) and "If he was here, he should not worry."(I can't imagine many situations for this example, but it's still possible).
0
The second case is wrong. It should be: If you HAD BEEN here....
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