We may work from the classic to the generative, to reason on language Form Relativity.
Let us think about eating a cookie or keeping it for later, to compare the classic premise (eating the cookie) and the consequent (not having it for later).
CLASSIC ZERO CONDITIONAL
82. If you eat the cookie, you DO NOT have it for later.
Both the target grammatical time and the language form are the PRESENT.
CLASSIC FIRST CONDITIONAL
83. If you eat the cookie, you WILL NOT have it.
We thought about the verb form “WILL” in the fields of time at the beginning of the language journey.
The verb form “WILL” maps on the FUTURE already in its PRESENT grammatical shape. We may compare Modal uses:
84. She WILL be reading now.
(I am sure she he is reading now.)
In example 83, the language form is the PRESENT, and the target grammatical time is the FUTURE.
CLASSIC SECOND CONDITIONAL
The language form is the PAST. The target grammatical time is the PRESENT.
CLASSIC THIRD CONDITIONAL
The language form is the anchored PAST. We may recur to ■subchapter 9.2. The target grammatical time is the PAST.
CLASSIC FOURTH / MIXED CONDITIONAL
The language forms are, accordingly, the anchored PAST and PAST. The target grammatical time is the PAST and the PRESENT.
We can see a regularity that holds for all classic Conditional shapes, and we may conclude there is generally some relativity between language form and target grammatical time — for theory making.
PAST forms refer to the PRESENT, and PRESENT forms refer to the FUTURE. It is only the anchored PAST to stay in the PAST.
Some resources may have the anchored Past for an antecedent PAST, but we may agree there is one PAST, one PRESENT and one FUTURE.
Theory making is similar in Polish, Russian, French, and other languages:
if I was, si j’étais, gdybym był/a, был/а я , wäre ich, etc.
Our relativity has nothing to do with ■Whorfianism.
Classic guidance may advise the First Conditional when probability is high, and the Second for things more probable than those in the Third.
88. If I WERE you, I WOULD . . .
We could label example 88 as the Second Conditional or Unreal Past, yet it conveys zero probability, for the PRESENT, PAST, as well as FUTURE. The likelihood to become another human individual literally and ever really is zero, for everyone.
88a. *I AM you . . . / *You ARE me . . . ?
Some classic guidance would say, the Third Conditional is for those least probable of events. Example 89 could be yet telling about a prevented thing.
89. HAD you NOT taken care of it, this handle WOULD HAVE broken off.
(Nothing happened only because failure was effectively avoided).
We could label examples 90 and 90a the classic First Conditional, yet one conveys PROBABILITY and the other CERTAINTY.
Probability does not have to be something abstract to learn. We may think about the world — mostly in three dimensions for everyday living — and fruit or flowers that can add up to cubes of possibility.
90. If you take care of this handle, it MIGHT work.
The probability is low. We have only one cube on the right here.
90a. If you take care of this handle, it WILL work.
Taking care of the gizmo is certain to bring a working condition. We have all the five cubes of possibility here that we are going to get on the top of the mountain and have aromatic tea.
Let us now think about syntactic structuring again.
■10.1. UNREAL OR REAL TIME.