Mood of verb in extended conditional
Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2023 11:37 am
Consider the following sentence:
If I were being pursued by someone who was/were determined to kill me, I would be terrified.
This is a second conditional with a relative clause contained in the antecedent. Under strict grammatical rules, the verb after "I" should be in the past subjunctive ("were"). But what about the verb after "who"? Should that be in the subjunctive too? The indicative mood ("was") sounds more natural, but it is generally considered wrong to use the past indicative where (as here) there is no reference to past time.
Which do you consider strictly correct – "who was" or "who were"?
If I were being pursued by someone who was/were determined to kill me, I would be terrified.
This is a second conditional with a relative clause contained in the antecedent. Under strict grammatical rules, the verb after "I" should be in the past subjunctive ("were"). But what about the verb after "who"? Should that be in the subjunctive too? The indicative mood ("was") sounds more natural, but it is generally considered wrong to use the past indicative where (as here) there is no reference to past time.
Which do you consider strictly correct – "who was" or "who were"?