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Help the estate lawyer complete his rather dramatic case notes. Pay close attention to the formal, hypothetical conditional structures!
_________________________ the eccentric billionaire to suddenly change his will, his ungrateful heirs _________________________ absolutely furious. Furthermore, _________________________ not for his loyal pet parrot who physically guards the safe, the relatives might have stolen the inheritance already!
Answers and Explanations:
- Were
- would be
- were it
Were the eccentric billionaire to suddenly change...
This is an inverted conditional. In formal English, we can drop "if" and invert the subject and verb using the subjunctive "were" (meaning If the billionaire were to change...). "Was" cannot be used in this inverted structure.
...his ungrateful heirs would be absolutely furious.
The "were to" structure refers to a hypothetical future event, so the main clause requires the present conditional "would be," not the past conditional "would have been."
...were it not for his loyal pet parrot...
This is a fixed, formal subjunctive expression meaning "if it were not for" (or "without"). It describes a present/ongoing hypothetical situation.