Tomorrow, he should pretend he was on a bus

Question

"He is afraid of flying. When he flies tomorrow, he should pretend he was on a bus instead of an airplane."

I uttered the above statement in a recent conversation. Of course, I could replace the "was" with "is", but the "was" still sounds reasonably natural. Neither "should pretend he is" nor "should pretend he was" appear in the CoCA corpus, but "should pretend he was" yields about half as many google hits as "should pretend he is", suggesting that it is a reasonably common variant.

So, what are the grammatical properties of "was"? It's not bastardized subjunctive: "he should pretend he were" sounds horrible. It doesn't seem to be conditional either. And it certainly doesn't seem to be past tense. So what role is it performing, and why does it sound OK (even if not ideal) to native ears?

Many thanks.

Related: http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/6982/which-languages-conflate-imperfective-past-and-irrealis-and-why — TKR, Feb 25 '17 at 00:22
Tensed clauses are not really prepared for counterfactuals; the normal way to say it is tenselessly, with an infinitive: he should pretend to be on a bus instead of an airplane. — jlawler, Feb 25 '17 at 16:52
Why the closing votes? This strikes me as a perfectly cogent and interesting question. — TKR, Feb 25 '17 at 18:17

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:54

This seems to be an extension of the so-called modal preterite (CGEL's term -- see StoneyB's comment on Pascal-Denis Lussier's answer), in which English constructions with irrealis semantics can take formally past-tense verbs even though there is no actual past-tense reference.

Examples:

I wish I was on a bus right now!
It's time you came home.
I'd rather you were here. (some dialects)
I'd like to be able to say that he wrote brilliant poetry, but he doesn't.
If only we were there with you!

As the last example shows, this may be a related phenomenon to the use of past-tense forms in the protases of unreal conditionals: If I was rich, I'd buy a house.

Though pretend is not normally used with this construction, its irrealis semantics apparently license it for some speakers, including you -- a straightforward enough extension. (The exact set of circumstances under which modal preterites may be used in English is not clear to me, hence this previous question, which also asked why this conflation of past tense and irrealis exists in the first place.)

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 25 '17 at 14:52

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I will dub this very interesting construction "indirect mental discourse", since it seems similar to ordinary indirect discourse with verbs like "say". Indirect discourse allows a direct quote to be converted to a "that"-clause which characterizes indirectly what was said, rather than giving the exact words (which may not be known to the reporter). In converting from a direct quote, the tense of the indirect report may be changed to one which is relative to the time of the report.

He says "I am on a bus."  
==> He says that he is on a bus.

He said "I am on a bus."  
==> He said that he was on a bus.

He will say "I am on a bus."  
==> He will say that he was/is on a bus.

For the last example above, the present tense of the direct quote precedes the future tense of the quotation verb, so this licenses "was" in the indirect quote.

In the example of the question, the construction is similar, but it is harder to recognize because (1) the speech is mental rather than aloud,

He will think "I am on a bus."  
==> He will think that he was/is on a bus.

and (2), "pretend" with a direct quote is marginally grammatical, at best.

*He will pretend "I am on a bus."  
==> He will pretend that he was/is on a bus.

answered Feb 25 '17 at 14:52

Greg Lee

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I don't understand this part: In converting from a direct quote, the tense of the indirect report may be changed to one which is relative to the time of the report ... For the last example above, the present tense of the direct quote precedes the future tense of the quotation verb, so this licenses "was" in the indirect quote. The time of the quoted verb is contemporaneous with that of the quoting verb, and both are in the future relative to the time of utterance, so what would license a past tense here? – TKR Feb 25 '17 at 18:16
Assume that "should" is formally a past form. The story might go through if based on formal properties rather than time-reference. I reject the example as utterly ungrammatical, but I also reject "could of" which is well-documented. I don't see how we can go any further than speculating, without a more robust corpus. – user6726 Feb 25 '17 at 18:31
@user6726, the examples in this question seem to be of the same kind -- if so, it would be better to find a unified account. (Personally the example is not one I would produce, but it doesn't strike me as ungrammatical either.) – TKR Feb 25 '17 at 18:45
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As another note, converting He will say "I am on a bus" into He will say that he was on a bus (the third example in the answer) seems impossible to me; in the OP's example, was seems to be licensed (somehow) by the irrealis semantics, but that's not the case here. – TKR Feb 25 '17 at 18:47
I personally prefer an irrealis analysis – maybe you wanna go for it? Still need more data. – user6726 Feb 25 '17 at 19:08
@TKR, For that example, in the direct quote version, the verb of the quote, which is "am", is in the present tense, because that is the word he uses whenever he says he is on a bus. Let's say he speaks at a time T2, so that is when the "am" is appropriate, T2. The verb of reporting, "say" is in the future tense, so let's call the time of the report T1. Finally, let's make the time at which the speaker/writer says the entire sentence T0. In the indirect speech version, since T1 is later than T0, we us a future tense form of "say". Since T2 is before T1, we put "be" into the past tense. – Greg Lee Feb 25 '17 at 19:11
@user6726, "should" is not a past tense form. Perhaps by "formally" you meant "etymologically". – Greg Lee Feb 25 '17 at 19:30
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@GregLee, I mean with reference to a theory of formal (inflectional) features, thus not appealing to semantics. And if that was not what you havd in mind, then I can't interpret your answer. – user6726 Feb 25 '17 at 20:19
Doesn't T2 = T1? He's saying "I'm on a bus" at the same time that he is on a bus. – TKR Feb 25 '17 at 21:37
@TKR, No. You're thinking of tenses in indirect discourse as being all relative to some single time, perhaps the present time? But that is not so. It has to do with a relationship between times -- what is called "sequence of tenses" in traditional grammar. I tried to make that clear in the first part of my answer. – Greg Lee Feb 25 '17 at 22:32
Would you really use He will say he was on a bus to express that at some time in the future he will speak the utterance I am on a bus? To me the only grammatical option is He will say he is on a bus. – TKR Feb 26 '17 at 00:42
For T1 and T2, if at 4pm he will say "I am on a bus", then T1 (the time of his speaking) is 4pm, and T2 (the time of his being on a bus) is also 4pm. I don't see how you get to "T2 is before T1". – TKR Feb 26 '17 at 00:44
@TKR, If you review recent comments, you will see that all your examples have been about direct quotes, while all of mine have been about indirect quotes. Referring to your last comment, "am on a bus" does not occur in the example of interest: "He will say that he was on a bus." It is just not there. So why do you keep telling me about it? – Greg Lee Feb 26 '17 at 01:02
He will say "I am on a bus." is right there in your answer. – TKR Feb 26 '17 at 01:06
@TKR, But it is the interpretation of "was" that I am trying to explain, and the "was" occurs in indirect discourse. Can't we consider the words that are actually present in the indirect discourse version? Because that is what I'm trying to explain. Why can we use a past tense form when there seems to be no previous time involved? – Greg Lee Feb 26 '17 at 01:29
If your argument is that was is licensed because the time of the event expressed by that verb is anterior to the time of the event expressed by the reporting verb, then that obviously won't account for the OP's sentence, where the events are contemporaneous. If you're arguing something else, then I don't understand what it is. – TKR Feb 26 '17 at 01:38
@TKR, I think we're almost there. But the relevant events in the original example are not contemporaneous. "should pretend" is a future (like T1 in my example) and "was" (like T2) refers to a time preceding T2. T2 is anterior to T1, which is why the past form "was" is used. – Greg Lee Feb 26 '17 at 01:58
So you're reading the OP's sentence as meaning that, at a future time T1, he should pretend to have been on a bus at a previous time T2? But that's not what it means -- it means that at a future time T1 (namely tomorrow when he's on the plane), he should pretend to be currently on a bus instead of on a plane. T2 (the time when, in his imaginary mental space, he's on a bus) is the same as T1 (the time when he's on a plane) -- otherwise the pretense would be of no use for alleviating his fear of flying... – TKR Feb 26 '17 at 02:03
@TKR, No, T2 is the time of the pretended event. T2 is the time that he is saying to himself "I'm on a bus now". T2 is before T1 (if "was" is the indirect speech verb), Referring to your comment, T1 is not the time when he's on the plane, but the time referred to by "should pretend". – Greg Lee Feb 26 '17 at 02:48
Are we reading the sentence the same way? Tomorrow he will be sitting on a plane; when he is sitting on that plane tomorrow, he should pretend he's sitting on a bus instead. Is your reading different? If not, then the time referred to by "should pretend" is the time when he's on the plane, and so is the time of the pretended event: T1 = T2. "T2 is before T1" is a different scenario, in which he will be sitting on a plane tomorrow and pretending to have been sitting on a bus yesterday (or at some other time in the past of tomorrow). – TKR Feb 26 '17 at 02:55
@TKR, Not quite. Schematically: [ (declare, T0 [ should pretend, T1 [ be on bus, T2 ] ] ]. T0 is the time of the declaration. T0 is before T1, so tense is future. T2 is after T1, so tense is past. Referring to your comment, I don't agree that the time when he is on the plane tomorrow is the time of the pretended event of being on a bus. One is a real event and the other is a pretended event. – Greg Lee Feb 26 '17 at 03:39
Did you mean "T2 is before T1"? – TKR Feb 26 '17 at 03:41
Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Greg Lee Feb 26 '17 at 03:44

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 03 '23 at 12:05

This seems related to so-called "sequence of tense" phenomena, which are interesting and maybe hard to analyze.

Norbert Hornstein wrote an interesting little monograph a while ago about time, tense, and syntax. It's couched within a Chomskyan (GB) approach, but leverages ideas from Reichenbach's approach:

http://www.glottopedia.org/index.php/Reichenbach's_(1947)_theory_of_tense

and there's enough theory-neutral substance for it to be of value.

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 25 '17 at 13:44

To pretend is to represent an assertion as true; the assertion itself is cast in the indicative.

He pretends that he is on a bus.

But the tense—temporal reference—of the assertion is independent of the tense of pretend, for you may assert a past, present or future fact; and the form/construction of the verb employed in the assertion reflects the interaction of the tense of the assertion with the Reference Time of the pretense.

What you want here is almost certainly:

He should pretend (in the future when he is flying) that he is on a bus (at that time).

I'd bet that most of your hits on He should pretend he was ... reflect a situation analogous to

He should pretend (in the future) that he was on a bus (at the prior time when the prosecution allege that he was flying).

Tomorrow, he should pretend he *was* on a bus

4 Answers4

Tomorrow, he should pretend he was on a bus