Delahunty and Garvey
The 19th century has been called the “linguistic century.” During that
time scholars carried out a great deal of research into the dialects of sev-
eral European languages. They explored the historical relations among
the languages of Europe and parts of Asia, and developed concepts that
are still in use. In short, 19th century philologists laid the foundations of
modern linguistics.A number of researchers have argued that the past tense indicates “distal
events,” by which they mean situations or events removed in one way or
another (not just in time) from the current situation, for example, hypo-
thetical or conditional situations:
(2) a. If I were a rich man, I’d buy an Aston Martin.
b. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
In conditionals the past tense may be chosen instead of the present to give
the impression that the condition is unlikely to be fulfilled. Compare:
(3) a. If he has time, John will volunteer at the homeless shelter.
b. If he had time, John would volunteer at the homeless shelter.
Sentence (3a) represents a condition that is more likely to be true than the
condition represented in sentence (3b).
Distancing oneself from what one is saying can be used also to indicate
politeness or deference. Compare:
(4) a. I wonder if I can borrow your car.
I want to ask you whether your class is full.
b. I wondered if I could borrow your car.
I wanted to ask you whether your class was full.The bolded verbs of the (4a) sentences are in the present tense while the
bolded verbs of (4b) are in the past. We hope you will agree that the (4b)
sentences are more deferential than the (4a) sentences.
We can also put wishes and desires under the heading of “distal events.”
These are distal because they are removed from actuality. We regularly find
the past tense after verbs such as wish: I wish I had more money. In this sen-
tence, even though the wish is to have more money now and in the future,
the verb had is in the past tense.