help with "reportedly"

[Peter En]

Hi,

 

I had read that when we want to say an event had "reportedly" occured or something had been "reportedly" claimed, one uses the conditional perfect e.g. "Le tremblement de terre aurait fait de..."

 

My question: what tenses come after the "reportedly" then? If the main clause in conditional perfect had ended with a que, would I continue with the use of the conditional perfect? Or would I use conditional or imparfait? Or would I even use subjunctive since there's uncertainty?

[Neil Coffey]

Yes, using the conditional (and hence, the conditional perfect if reporting a past action) is indeed often an equivalent of English "reportedly", "allegedly".

Which tense you use along side it really depends more on the logic of what is being said. What specific example did you have in mind?

Incidentally, the subjunctive isn't really to do with (or triggered by) "uncertainty" per se. It's basically used in certain constructions. Take a look at this section on What is the subjunctive and see if it helps.

[Peter En]

thanks Neil- the pages on subjunctive were particularly useful!

my specific exams were looking more upon the lines of saying something like:

the police were allegedly brutal because they...

 

in this sense, I would use the pluperfect as you had said- but I am unsure as to whether what follows (in the past tense) requires a specific alteration.

I say this because I believe that the concordance des temps might even play a role- however I suspect that it only applies in indirect speech?

[Neil Coffey]

Generally, there's no need to alter the tenses of the verbs other than the main verb. In other words, the other verbs can stay in the tenses that you'd naturally expect them to be in for reported speech. So for example:

  Le premier ministre aurait déclaré que les mesures étaient nécessaires.

(You could also use "sont"-- it essentially works either way, as in English.)

That said, some writers might put all verbs in the conditional, perhaps for extra "safety". But I don't think there's any need to: with the first conditional you make it clear that you are "distancing" yourself.

Don't worry too much about the "concordance des temps"-- it doesn't really work anyway.