1.if he were my brother,i would have helped him.
2.if he had been my brother,i would have helped him.
Are both of them correct?
What speaker wants to convey is unreal past condition and past result.ao for that we should use 3rd conditional.but first sentence is written in my textbook.
So now, I am confused.
Best Answer
The key is the sequence of events, and the point to remember is the fact that being someone's brother does not change over time (apart from some specific circumstances).
Normally the second sentence would be correct - the events have happened in the past, and therefore you would use:
However, if he had been your brother he would still be your brother now. Therefore, using the first form is still OK:
It wouldn't work, for instance, where the events are limited to a timeframe:
You can easily see that him being thirsty now would have no bearing on giving him water in the past.