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(strictly speaking, the indicative in the subordinate clause doesn't have a tense--it hasn't happened, isn't happening, and may not happen, but the indicative is required because 'if' already carries the conditional sense, so adding a conditional form would be nonsense)
not sure i understand this. so an utterance like:
"if you would just let me finish, ..."
is nonsense?
fizzy.bleach
Brommers
Sorry, I should have been more precise. It's the past participle, not the past tense.
There are many types of past conditional sentences in English. Here are a few more examples:
https://www.englishpage.com/conditional/pastconditional.html
However, here the tense isn't actually the past, but the present. The tense of the whole sentence is determined by the main clause/the tense of the main clause (strictly speaking, the indicative in the subordinate clause doesn't have a tense--it hasn't happened, isn't happening, and may not happen, but the indicative is required because 'if' already carries the conditional sense, so adding a conditional form would be nonsense), i.e. the clause that has a subject and predicate and can therefore stand on its own.
'If I lay here' is incomplete and can't stand on its own (unless you wanted a thought to trail, for instance: 'If I lay here ...' (meaningful pause, wink, wink)) without a clause to complete it. 'Would you lie with me?' is a complete sentence in its own right and the subordinate clause depends on it.
Fun and games. :)