Can you tell me what tense is: "if + simple past, would + infinitive"? [closed]

She hugs and smiles thinking if Arjun wasn't so greedy he would be alive today.

It is easy to understand , if he had not been greedy he would have been alive today. But, what does the above mean?

Solution 1:

If Arjun wasn't so greedy he would be alive today is an example of a syntactic construction that is often called the second conditional or conditional 2. The verb in the if-clause (the protasis) is in the simple past tense, while the main clause (the apodosis) contains the modal would plus a bare infinitive (in this case be).

One use of the second conditional is for present counterfactuals (statements about the present that are contrary to the truth):

If you didn't smoke so much, you wouldn't have such a nasty cough (but you do smoke, so you do have a nasty cough).

If Arjun wasn't so greedy, he would be slim (but he is greedy, so he is not slim).

On this basis, the statement If Arjun wasn't so greedy, he would be alive today implies: but he is greedy so he is not alive today. This is clearly nonsensical, since you cannot be greedy without being alive.

Assuming that Arrjun is indeed dead and greed resulted in his death, the sentence needs to be constructed as follows:

If he had not been greedy, he would be alive today.

This is a so-called mixed conditional because it mixes the past perfect of the verb in the if-clause (a prototypical conditional 3 protasis) with would plus a bare infinitive (a prototypical conditional 2 apodosis).

As an aside I am interested to know the source of the sentence in question. As well as the semantic issue discussed above, it uses hug intransitively, whereas hug is normally followed by an object.