thecages

I'm very lucky to have an ear for grammar and tenses.

I pick up languages very quickly (I've picked up slightly wonky conversational Portuguese in two visits to Brazil), mainly because I somehow seem to be able to hear when something sounds correct instinctively.
This is the case with Portuguese where I am very sure of whether I form a sentence correctly or not.
This does not, however, mean that if I know that I've done it incorrectly I also know what the correct form is - just that I seem to be able to recognise the correct form.

Along those lines I've also always been good at English(my second language) tenses.

Here's an example of a fun sentence.

If I wanted to swim I would have had to have brought my ducky wings.

What I've not ever been good at is describing the grammatical parts of such a sentence.

OK here we go, but first a disclaimer:

1. I don't know shit about formal grammar - I'm going to pull this sentence apart using just what I've been able to gleen from Google in the last half an hour.
2. I don't give a shit about formal grammar - please don't send me corrections :)

OK, now that that is out of the way:

First, my guess is that this is simply a complex (multi-clause) past perfect sentence.
It is certainly not past perfect progressive (That would be 'If I had wanted to be swimming...').

Next, The sentence has two clauses as follows:

If I wanted to swim | I would have had to have brought my ducky wings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clause           |       Clause

And finally, Let's look at these two clauses.
Here's a list of the abbreviations used below:

• C- Conditional
• L - Verb Link
• N - Noun
• NM - Noun Modifier
• P - Pronoun
• V - Verb
• MAV - Modal Auxiliary Verb

If | I | wanted | to swim |
-----------------------------
C | P |   V    |   V     |

I | would have | had | to | have | brought | my | ducky | wings |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
P |     MAV    |  PP | L  |   V   |   V    | P  |  NM   |   N   |

---

There's also a cool toy at Link Grammar which spits out this:

+-----------------------------------------------Xp-----------------
+---------------Wd---------------+                         
|      +-----------CO*s----------+                         
|      +Cs+-Sp*i-+--TO-+--I-+    +-Sp*i+---If--+-PPf-+-TO-+-If-+---
|      |  |      |     |    |    |     |       |     |    |    |
LEFT-WALL if I.p wanted.v to swim.v I.p would.v have.v had.v to have.v


-----------------------------+
+---------Op--------+    |
|      +-----Dmc----+    |
PP--+      |    +---AN--+    |
|      |    |       |    |
brought.v my ducky.n wings.n .

Constituent tree:

(S (SBAR If
 (S (NP I)
    (VP wanted
        (S (VP to
               (VP swim))))))
(S (NP I)
(VP would
  (VP have
      (VP had
          (S (VP to
                 (VP have
                     (VP brought
                         (NP my ducky wings)))))))))
.)

My High School English teacher would be proud!