As one might have predicted

[Lola Lola]

How would you translate the phrase "as one might have predicted"?

Wie man wohl vorgesehen können hätte, .......

Thanks in advance!

 

[ablativ]

I would say:

Wie man vielleicht hätte vorhersehen können, ...

 

[Resa Reader]

abativ's translation sounds really good. I would also put it like this.

 

[fabio407]

Hi,

Would "Wie man wohl vorhersehen haben..." be wrong or convey another meaning? I mean is the use of the modal verb the only option here to convey the idea of possibility? Wouldn't "wohl" do the same?

Thanks!

 

[berndf]

Wie man wohl vorhersehen haben

Sorry, this is not a well formed sentence that could be interpreted.

 

[fabio407]

I've noticed that I've conjugated the auxiliary verb incorrectly. It should be 'wie man wohl vorhergesehen hat'. However, I suspect that this would still be incorrect, as you would only correct the conjugation.

Thank you, Bernd!

 

[berndf]

wie man wohl vorhergesehen hat

That sentence is fine. But to answer your original question: Saying that something could have happened and that something has probably happened are very different contentions.

 

[fabio407]

That sentence is fine. But to answer your original question: Saying that something could have happened and that something has probably happened are very different contentions.

Yes, I'm wondering whether there is another way (different from the one given in #2) of conveying the precise meaning of "might have", not the same as "could have":

A: We might have been able to save the victims.
B: How?
A: The most recent atidote has been sitting in the refrigerator since yesterday.
B: What? And no one tested it?

A very big difference between the may/might and would/could sentences is that
▪ the would/could sentences claim a high level of certainty about the hypothetical situation: the antidote is assumed to work;
▪ the may/might sentences lack that certainty. They suggest only that in the hypothetical situation (which might not even be stated yet), the antidote might have worked.
▪ − "may have" mainly indicates uncertainty about what we could have done.
▪ − "might have" suggests both (a) uncertainty and (+) (b) that the opportunity, if it even existed, is now lost.

The sentence in #2 could be translated, if I'm not wrong, as "maybe could have predicted", which claims, with "maybe", a moderate level (50%) of certainty, not the lack of it and the loss of an opportunity that possibly existed.

The use of "wohl" was my tentative.

I've found the following text [source] in which the sense seems to be the one of "might have":

Und er fragt, wer 1912 wohl vorhergesehen hat, wie sich der Kapitalismus des 20. Jahrhunderts entwickeln würde. «Jetzt sind wir wieder an dem Punkt, an dem erst 12 Prozent des neuen Jahrhunderts um sind» - man dürfe dem Kapitalismus also weiter einiges zutrauen.

Maybe there isn't a structure equivalent to "might have" in many languages. We don't have it in Portuguese, for instance. But being English a Germanic language, I thought it could exist in German.

 

[bearded]

Would "Wie man wohl vorhersehen haben..." be wrong...

Wie man wohl vorhergesehen haben könnte.

But ablativ's formulation in #2 is better/more idiomatic.

 

[berndf]

Yes, I'm wondering whether there is another way (different from the one given in #2) of conveying the precise meaning of "might have", not the same as "could have":

Translating might have been predicted by something that would translate back as could have been predicted is still much closer in meaning than saying that something was probably predicted.

 

[manfy]

Wie man wohl vorhergesehen haben könnte.

That's not so bad!

I feel that the problem with such a sentence fragment is that we don't quite know what the English 'might' expresses. Sometimes it may express subjunctive mood but sometimes it does not. If 'might' is just used as a less certain version of 'may' (both expressing indicative mood) then I'd be inclined to say "..., wie man es wohl vorhergesehen haben mag, ..."

That feels pretty close to indicative "as one might have predicted."
But it would be best if @fabio407 could provide a full sentence -- thanks in advance!

[edit: typos]

 

[JClaudeK]

I'm wondering whether there is another way (different from the one given in #2) of conveying the precise meaning of "might have", not the same as "could have":

Perhaps:

• Wie es möglicherweise vorherzusagen/ vorherzusehen war, .....

Eher so, als die etwas schwerfällige Formulierung mit "man" + Modalverb(en).

 

[berndf]

Right. This form is both passive and modal. That works very well.

 

[fabio407]

I feel that the problem with such a sentence fragment is that we don't quite know what the English 'might' expresses. Sometimes it may express subjunctive mood but sometimes it does not. [...]

Thank you, Manfy!

That's a tricky issue in English.

I'm referring here only to the subjunctive mood. All the sentences provided in the first quotation in #8 are in subjunctive mood, for they all present hypothetical situations.

In these cases, hypothetical situations didn't materialize in the past. The difference between them lies in the level of certainty about how potentially realizable they were.

Here some other full sentences I've made up based on others taken from this page :

You were stupid to fight with him. He would have killed you.
[Fortunately it didn't happen, but with a level of certainty of 100% he would have killed you because he is a professional fighter.]
Translation to German by DeepL: Es war dumm von dir, mit ihm zu kämpfen. Er hätte dich getötet.

You were stupid to fight with him. He could have killed you.
[Fortunately it didn't happen, but with a level of certainty of 50% he could have killed you it because he is a good fighter, tought not a professional one.]
Translation to German by DeepL: Es war dumm von dir, mit ihm zu kämpfen. Er hätte dich töten können.

You were stupid to fight with him. He might have killed you.
[Fortunately it didn't happen, but with a level of certainty of 20% he might have killed you because at that time he had been training Krav Maga for some months and had already learned two or three lethal techniques.]
Translation to German by DeepL: Es war dumm von dir, mit ihm zu kämpfen. Er hätte dich töten können.

When I asked for your help here, I was under the impression that [1] the modal verb "können" would be used in the Konditional II construction for both the "could have" and "might have" sentences provided above and that [2] there might be a specific structure, similar to English's "might have," to express the low level of certainty in the last sentence."

It seems that JClaudeK provided an other structure in # 12. Thank you, JClaude!

Let me try to rephrase the last sentence using "möglicherweise" and Konjuntiv II Future II:

Es war dumm von dir, mit ihm zu kämpfen. Er würde dich möglicherweise getoten haben.

DeepL translated it this way: It was stupid of you to fight him. He might have killed you.

 

[JClaudeK]

You were stupid to fight with him. He would have killed you.
[Fortunately it didn't happen, but with a level of certainty of 100% he would have killed you because he is a professional fighter.]
Translation to German by DeepL: Es war dumm von dir, mit ihm zu kämpfen. Er hätte dich getötet.

For me, this sentence doesn't make sens: If the fight really took place (You were stupid to fight with him. / Es war dumm von dir, mit ihm zu kämpfen), the challenger must be dead now:
It should read:
You were would have been stupid to fight with him. He would have killed you.
Es war wäre dumm von dir gewesen, mit ihm zu kämpfen. Er hätte dich getötet.

Let me try to rephrase the last sentence using "möglicherweise" and Konjuntiv II Future II:

Es war dumm von dir, mit ihm zu kämpfen. (Er würde dich möglicherweise getoten haben.*)

⇒ Er hätte dich möglicherweise / vielleicht töten können. ≈ He might have killed you.

 

[fabio407]

For me, this sentence doesn't make sens: If the fight really took place (You were stupid to fight with him. / Es war dumm von dir, mit ihm zu kämpfen), the challenger must be dead now:
It should read:
You were would have been stupid to fight with him. He would have killed you.
Es war wäre dumm von dir gewesen, mit ihm zu kämpfen. Er hätte dich getötet.

I agree. I didn't notice that lack of sense when I made it up.

⇒ Er hätte dich möglicherweise / vielleicht töten können. ≈ He might have killed you.

Thank you!

 

[fabio407]

Es war dumm von dir, mit ihm zu kämpfen. Er würde dich möglicherweise getöten haben.

JClaude corrected me in # 15 and I'd studying the KII Futur II tense again. I'd like to ask whether the second sentence of the following statement would convey the same meaning of "Er hätte dich getöten.":

Es wäre dumm von dir gewesen, mit ihm zu kämpfen. Er würde dich getötet haben.
Translation (?): You would have been stupid to fight him. He would have killed you. [with a high level of certainty he would have killed you -- then without the adverb "möglicherweise"]

In that case, there is no modal verb and that's why KII Futur II as well as KII Plusquamperfekt could be used with the same (?) meaning.

But if we want to use "können" as a modal verb to convey the sense of (not 100% level of certainty, then a mere possibility, a sense conveyed by "können") to kill ("might/could have killed") then KII Plusquamperfekt would be the structure to choose in order to use the modal verb "können", as did JClaude. That is to say, the adverb itself is not idiomatic or enough to convey that uncertainty in the conditional mood, as it were in the indicative mood # 12.


Is that right? Thanks!

 

[manfy]

Es wäre dumm von dir gewesen, mit ihm zu kämpfen. Er würde dich getötet haben.

That looks like "Ersatzkonjunktiv" to me and it sounds odd in this context.
Technically it's not ungrammatical, I think, but we normally don't use "Ersatzkonjunktiv" for haben, sein und werden and for modal verbs. Stick to proper K1 and K2 for these verbs!

But if we want to use "können" as a modal verb to convey the sense of (not 100% level of certainty, then a mere possibility, a sense conveyed by "können") to kill ("might/could have killed") then KII Plusquamperfekt would be the structure to choose in order to use the modal verb "können", as did JClaude.

I'm not sure how to read this. Where did JCK say that? Can you, please, copy the actual sentences into your post? Jumping back and forth in a long, complex thread is rather irritating.

 

[JClaudeK]

we normally don't use "Ersatzkonjunktiv" for haben, sein und werden and for modal verbs. Stick to proper K1 and K2 for these verbs!

 

[fabio407]

I'm not sure how to read this. Where did JCK say that? Can you, please, copy the actual sentences into your post? Jumping back and forth in a long, complex thread is rather irritating.

He didn't say that. That was my attempt to find some logic behind the idiomatic phenomenon, something that is often not possible but that helps us learners avoid having to memorize each specific situation. However, you provided in your last answer a rule of thumb, endorsed by JClaude, that solves the problem and is easy to memorize.

Thank you, Manfy!

 

[manfy]

Regarding the grading of possibility in your post #14, I did some more thinking:

Somehow I don't really like "Er hätte dich möglicherweise töten können" so much. It sounds like his ability of killing you is being graded and not the possibility/probability of getting killed.
And that corresponds to the English "He might have been able to kill you" and not "he might have killed you."

So I suggest a new grading scale (for your specific context!):
Er hätte dich getötet. -> He would have killed you => 100% confidence
Er hätte dich wahrscheinlich getötet. -> He probably would have killed you => 75% confidence
Er hätte dich töten können. -> He could have killed you => 50% confidence (+/-49%)
Er hätte dich vielleicht getötet. -> He might have killed you => 25% confidence
Er hätte dich möglicherweise getötet. -> He possibly might have killed you => 12.5% confidence

Don't take the percentage figures too seriously. They just show the approximate certainty that the speaker might want to express. There are many other adverbs that could be used

 

[JClaudeK]

Somehow I don't really like "Er hätte dich möglicherweise töten können" so much. It sounds like his ability of killing you is being graded and not the possibility/probability of getting killed.

Ideed, "Er hätte dich möglicherweise töten können" doesn't sound very natural. This sentence was only intended as a correction of

Es war dumm von dir, mit ihm zu kämpfen. Er würde dich möglicherweise getoten haben.

 

[fabio407]

So I suggest a new grading scale (for your specific context!):
Er hätte dich getötet. -> He would have killed you => 100% confidence
Er hätte dich wahrscheinlich getötet. -> He probably would have killed you => 75% confidence
Er hätte dich töten können. -> He could have killed you => 50% confidence (+/-49%)
Er hätte dich vielleicht getötet. -> He might have killed you => 25% confidence
Er hätte dich möglicherweise getötet. -> He possibly might have killed you => 12.5% confidence

Thank you very much, Manfy! Really useful. A took note of that in my notebook

[1] Notice that you've used the modal verb only in your third sentence, the one equivalent to 'could have' and the only among the sentences that expresses no total confidence, in which an adverb was used to convey uncertainty.

[2] The strucutre use in that third sentence was Konjuntiv II Plusquamperfekt + modal verb "können".

[3] As you said, these percentages are not to be taken seriously. They're only a didatic means of facilitating the understanding to learners.

That's [ 1 + 2 + 3] what I meant when I said that

[...] if we want to use "können" as a modal verb to convey the sense of (not 100% level of certainty, then a mere possibility, a sense conveyed by "können") to kill ("might/could have killed") then KII Plusquamperfekt would be the structure to choose in order to use the modal verb "können", as did JClaude.

I think we could come to the following conclusion:

In English, both 'could' and 'might' are modal verbs used with a verb conjugated in the present perfect tense to convey different levels of certainty when expressing the idea of possibility in hypothetical situations.

Conversely, in German, there is no modal verb equivalent to 'might'. The modal verb 'können' is used in hypothetical situations equivalent to 'could + present perfect', and adverbs are used in such situations equivalent to 'might + present perfect'.

And to the following thesis:

The structure 'might + present perfect' does not have its origins in German. It developed in the evolution of English, possibly influenced by other languages like French. [ "peut avoir été" → possibility vs.
"pourrait avoir été" → possibility with a lower probability, as explained in this thread ]

 

[JClaudeK]

Er hätte dich töten können. - [2] The strucutre use in that third sentence was Konjuntiv II Plusquamperfekt + modal verb "können".

This is not <Konjuntiv II Plusquamperfekt> but <Konjunktiv II Präteritum>.

Cf. here #4:
hätte dienen können vs gedient haben können

 

[berndf]

<Konjunktiv II Präteritum>

or Konjunktiv II Perfekt. The two are not distinguished.

 

[JClaudeK]

or Konjunktiv II Perfekt. The two are not distinguished.

Cf.: Konjunktiv II der Vergangenheit (mein-deutschbuch.de)

• Es gibt nur eine Vergangenheit im Konjunktiv II gegenüber den drei Vergangenheitsformen im Indikativ. Als Basis dient die Perfektform: "haben / sein + Partizip II", wobei die Hilfsverben die Konjunktiv II-Formen " hätten " bzw. " wären " erhalten.
• Die Modalverben bilden den Konjunktiv II der Vergangenheit mit dem Hilfsverb haben im Konjunktiv II sowie einem "doppelten Infinitiv". Das Modalverb wird an das Satzende gestellt.

Präteritum	Lena	durfte	nach Köln	fahren.
Perfekt	Lena	hat	nach Köln	fahren	dürfen.
Konj. II mit Modalverb	Lena	hätte	nach Köln	fahren	dürfen.