how does the meaning of this paragraph change if we substitute would with will ? is it even possible
when Mr bilbo baggins of bag end announced that he WOULD shortly BE celebrating his eleventy-first birthday....
whats the roll of BE here ?can we simply omit it ?
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Answers · 15
4
WOULD BE celebrating (BE is required here for passive voice)
Cannot say "would celebrating".
Can say "will celebrate" or "would celebrate".
"Will" is definite. "Would" leaves room for it not happening for some reason. (He's not that old yet.)
1
"Would" is simply the past tense of "will" in this context. If someone says now "I will be celebrating my birthday", then putting it into the past and reporting it, you would say "he said that he would be celebrating his birthday".
1
You can substitute it with will. The "will" is used to indicate the future tense. The difference between "will" and "would" in this example is that "would" is more conditional. You have to keep the "be" in the sentence for it to make sense.
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