He stopped so that I might catch up.

[stephenlearner]

He stopped so that I might catch up.

Is "might" correct? Should "might have caught up" be used instead?

Thank you very much.

 

[Rover_KE]

'Might' is OK; 'could' is better; 'might have caught up' is wrong.

 

[stephenlearner]

I agree that "could" is better. I wanted to know if "might" is fine and why it is fine if it is.

We don't say "thirty years ago, people might want to...". Instead, we say "thirty years ago, people might have wanted to...".

Why is it acceptable to use "might" in OP?

 

[sound shift]

In the OP, "so that I might catch up" means "so that I would be able to catch up", "to allow me to catch up".

 

[stephenlearner]

So, does might point to the future in the past? I think could means "would be able to". Might doesn't seem to mean this.

 

[velisarius]

He stopped so that I might catch up.

It looks rather old-fashioned to me. You give no context, but it's more likely to have been used in the first part of the 20th century than in the 21st. Today most people would use "could".

 

[dojibear]

He stopped so that I might catch up.

Sounds BE to me. AE would say "could" (with the meaning "was able to"). We're talking about a fact, not a maybe.

More natural in AE is "He stopped to let me catch up."

 

[manfy]

In the OP, "so that I might catch up" means "so that I would be able to catch up", "to allow me to catch up".

Exactly! And that's where I sense a nuance of difference between 'might' and 'could' (provided the context supports this reading):

"so that I might catch up" says that he gave me a channce to catch up - it doesn't imply that I did catch up.
"so that I could catch up" strongly suggests that I did catch up, ie. he stopped and waited until I had caught up.

Am I just imagining things or would you agree that this nuance is possible?