Here’s a fun explanation of past contrafactual statements from the 日本語総まとめN2 読解 workbook!
“But Sasha,” you ask, “what is a past contrafactual statement?” Lucky for you, I’m a student of linguistics as well as Japanese, so I am disproportionately familiar with nerdy grammar items such as these! Anyways, let’s get to business.
A contrafactual or contrary-to-fact statement is one that relays a scenario that has not yet happened or did not actually happen (notice this textbook’s frequent use of 実際に・は).
More broadly, contrafactual statements can differ from each other by what tense they occur in, either present (which has a future flavor) or past. Here’s an example of each in English.
Present contrafactual: If I studied every day, I would learn faster.
The implication here is that the speaker is not currently studying every day; thus, a change in their actions would lead to a different result. (This idea of possible change gives present contrafactuals that future flavor.)
Past contrafactual: If I had studied every day, I would have learnt faster.
The implication here is that the speaker is reminiscing: “If I had studied every day,” they say, but they didn’t; thus, the expected result of studying every day did not occur. Change is not possible in the past contrafactual. (Compare てしまった in Japanese: the action is finished, occasionally with a tinge of regret.)
Contrafactuals in Indo-European languages
In Indo-European languages, contrafactual statements are often marked by moods of unreality, such as the subjunctive, and conditional verb clauses. If you’re familiar with Romance languages, Latin, or Greek, consider these Spanish contrafactuals:
Si estudiara cada día, aprendería más rápidamente. = If I studied (were to study) every day, I would learn faster.
Estudiara is an imperfect (past) subjunctive. Aprendería is a conditional in the indicative.
Si hubiera estudiado cada día, habría aprendido más rápidamente. = If I had studied every day, I would have learnt faster.
Hubiera estudiado is a pluperfect subjunctive construction. Habría aprendido is a perfect conditional construction in the indicative.
The subjunctive even appears vestigially in English contrafactuals (“if I were a rich man”), though many Englishes nowadays accept “if I was,” too.
Contrafactuals in Japanese
Lucky for us, Japanese contrafactuals don’t have nearly as many moving parts as do Spanish! For one thing, grammatical mood doesn’t exist in Japanese (or if it does, it’s just the indicative); for another, conditionals using たら are really simple to form because all you do is add a volitional piece. Let’s take a look.
もし毎日は勉強したら、速く習うだろう。= If I studied every day, I would learn faster.
The conditional here, accompanied by もし, is implanted directly into the verb of the first clause: する → したら. Where Romance languages use the subjunctive, Japanese simply tacks on a volitional だろう.
Side note: because of the conflation of present and future in Japanese, the conditional + volitional construct can feel vividly futuristic. Not to mention if you remove もし, the たら form can mean “when.”
もし毎日は勉強していたら、速く習っていただろう。= If I had studied every day, I would have learnt faster.
Marginally more complicated. する takes the auxiliary いる and transforms the whole thing into a conditional: する → している → していたら. Same thing with the volitional: 習う → 習っている → 習っていただろう。
簡単ですよね！Now, let’s finally return to the example sentences from my textbook and the all-Japanese explanations given.
The past contrafactuals from my textbook
これは写真に書いてあった例文です。Here’s what’s written in the photo:
もしあの飛行機に乗っていたら、事故にあっていただろう。
実際は飛行機に乗っていない。実際は事故にあっていない。
“If I had gotten on that airplane, I would have been in an accident.”
BUT: In reality I didn’t get on the airplane. In reality I haven’t been in an accident.
あのときもっと勉強していたら、今ごろ博士になっていただろう。
実際は勉強が足りなかった。実際は博士になっていない。
“If I had studied more back then, I would have had a PhD by now.”
BUT: In reality I didn’t study enough. In reality I haven’t become a PhD.
There are three takeaways from this mini-lesson:
There are two types of contrafactuals: present and past.
Contrafactuals convey situations that have not yet happened or did not actually happen.
In Japanese, contrafactuals are formed by using conditional and volitional verbs.
If you think you’ve got a handle on these takeaways and the example sentences, then fantastic—congrats on learning a fairly advanced (N2-level) grammatical item! If you have any questions or comments or even if you just want to chat, my ask box is always open!
ようやくすっかり終わりました！読んでくれてありがとうございました！
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