2021-03-02 BWH

(If the last syllable of a word with more than one syllable is -y (in other words it ends with a consonant followed by ‘y’), and it’s unstressed, it’s almost always pronounced /i/, as it is in “happy”.)

Words that end with stress on the -y have the long-i sound like “apply”, “rely”, “July”.
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https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/ - You can search for words and phrases that fit a certain pattern and it will show you the most common examples in modern American English. (If you click on an entry, you can see many examples of that word or phrase in sentences.)
* is a wildcard that can be any letter or string of letters.
There are also codes for parts of speech (adjectives, nouns, verbs, etc.)
*ly_j* - This will search for adjectives that end with “ly”
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Tenses and Aspects

Each tense has four aspects:
progressive is always formed with [be] + verb(ing)
perfect is always formed with [have] + past participle
perfect progressive is always formed with [have] + been + verb(ing)
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Conditionals
Conditionals (and related expressions with “might”, for example) can be real or unreal.

real = Something did or will happen, or I’m unsure about whether it did or will, but I think it’s possible.
	Real conditionals use the normal tenses for each time frame, except we don’t use future tense in the if-clause.
future real = First Conditional: If it rains tomorrow, I will bring my umbrella.
present real = If he lives in France, then he probably speaks French.
past real = If she was born in 1990, then she turned 21 in 2011.

unreal = Something definitely didn’t happen, or I don’t think it will.
	future unreal = present unreal
	= Second Conditional: If I won the lottery (tomorrow), I would buy a house.
				     (If I had a lot of money right now, I would buy a house.)
				(Formally, we don’t use “was” in 2nd conditional if-clauses. Just “were”.)
	past unreal = Third Conditional = If Greg had studied medicine, he would have become a doctor.
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- With first and second conditional, the if-clause is simple past, so you need the result clause in order to know if it’s a real or unreal conditional.
- Within real or unreal, you can mix the time frames of the if-clause and the result clause.
	real: If he’s a good student, then he studied for the test and he will have no problem passing.
	unreal: If he were a good student, then he would have studied for the test and he would have no problem passing.
		= He isn’t a good student, so he didn’t study and he will have some problem passing.
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If he wanted to help people, he would have become a doctor.
= He doesn’t really want to help people, so he didn’t become a doctor.

If he won the lottery, he isn’t going to be in class.
- This is a real conditional. The speaker thinks it’s possible that he won the lottery.

If he won the lottery, he wouldn’t be in class.
- This is an unreal conditional. The speaker thinks that he is in class, so in conclusion he didn’t win the lottery.
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Common Errors
- When someone says “would of” or “should of”, they simply misunderstand that the correct form is “would have” or “should have”, because the pronunciation reduction of “have” sounds the same as “of”.
	would have -> would’ve -> woulda

“If he would have won the lottery, he wouldn’t be in class.” - People sometimes say this with the same meaning as “If he had won”. It’s not standard academic English but it’s usually understood.
“If he wouldn’t have cheated on me, I wouldn’t have keyed his car.” -> “If he hadn’t cheated on me,...”
(I think I’ve heard native speakers say things like “If he hadn’t have cheated…”, which is also incorrect.)
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Both “will” and “would” are complicated by the fact that they can express willingness or refusal in some cases.
	I wish it would stop raining. = It won’t stop (it “refuses”), and this makes me unhappy.
	If it would just stop raining, we could go outside.
(I think what’s happening is we understand this as a present tense situation, not future, so the normal rule about avoiding “will” and “would” in the if-clause doesn’t apply.)




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Future topics:

pronunciation (rules?) - especially for communicating with patients and children

Use of borrowed words

say/tell (and other often confused pairs)

tense overview/review (auxiliaries and prepositions, e.g.)

how to form good complex sentences (including punctuation)