Exclamativos con quién

Alexander B.A2Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Exclamativos con quién

¡Hola!

I would like to pay your attention to the following constructions:

Quién + iba a/podía/podría + infinitivo de pensar, suponer... + que (+ sujeto) +  iba a + infinitivo/condicional/imperfecto de indicativo (+sujeto)

Examples taken from GRAMÁTICA DE USO DEL ESPAÑOL: Teoría y practica C1 - C2 by Luis Aragonés y Ramón Palencia. Unidad 27

¡Quién podía pensar que Lorenzo tenía dos hijas!

¡Quién podría pensar que la empresa tenía pérdidas!

Could you tell me whether the mentioned examples refer to the Present and past tenses are used because of Concordancia de Tiempos or to the Past?

If they refer to the Past, is it possible to use Pesente and Pluscuamperfecto in the second part to express different periods of time?

Regards, 

Alexander



Asked 4 years ago
InmaKwiziq team memberCorrect answer

Hola Alexander,

In this structure that you mention, the second part of the sentence would be referring to something happening in the present despite using the past tense, or actually something happening in the past.  For example, I could say:

"¡Quién iba a pensar que Marcos tenía novia.!"

Who would have thought that Marcos had a girlfriend!

Who would have thought that Marcos has a girlfriend!

Or I could say:

¡Quién iba a pensar que Marcos se había casado!

Would would have thought that Marcos had got married!

In the first sentence with "tenía novia" we can be referring to him having a girlfriend at the present time, or could be referring to him having a girlfriend at some point in the past and he doesn't have a girlfriend anymore (maybe...)

In the second sentence using the pluperfect (se había casado)we are clearly referring to something he did/had done in the past.

But coming back to the first sentence and changing it to something different, for example:

"¡Quién iba a pensar que Marcos se casaba!"

we are referring here to something that Marcos is going to do (despite using the imperfect casaba), still to happen.

There is a lot of flexibility with this structure.

In terms of using the present, yes, I think you can, for example:

¡Quién iba a pensar que Marcos se casa mañana!

¡Quién iba a pensar que Marcos tiene novia!

So, most of the time you need to know the specific context to really know if they are referring to the present, past or future.

I hope this helped a bit.

Saludos

Inma

Alexander B.A2Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

¡Muchas gracias, Inma!

Exclamativos con quién

¡Hola!

I would like to pay your attention to the following constructions:

Quién + iba a/podía/podría + infinitivo de pensar, suponer... + que (+ sujeto) +  iba a + infinitivo/condicional/imperfecto de indicativo (+sujeto)

Examples taken from GRAMÁTICA DE USO DEL ESPAÑOL: Teoría y practica C1 - C2 by Luis Aragonés y Ramón Palencia. Unidad 27

¡Quién podía pensar que Lorenzo tenía dos hijas!

¡Quién podría pensar que la empresa tenía pérdidas!

Could you tell me whether the mentioned examples refer to the Present and past tenses are used because of Concordancia de Tiempos or to the Past?

If they refer to the Past, is it possible to use Pesente and Pluscuamperfecto in the second part to express different periods of time?

Regards, 

Alexander



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