The way to solve the problem is to find someone the child can play with. LOL

Candace

Aram Mrktychev wrote:

> "(1)The little child is lonely; he would be happier if he had someone
> that he can play with."
>
> I'm trying to understand what "can" or "could" has something to do with a
> subjunctive mood in this sentence because all I see here is that word
> "would" only determines a subjunctive mood. The only reason why it is not
> clear and people got stocked on words "can" and "could" is because in this
> sentence essential phrase " he would be happier " stands before "if."  I'm
> not sure if there is any standard form of sentences exists for each rule,
> but it is more comfortable for me to see a subjunctive mood here if you will
> rephrase this sentence a little bit: "The little child is lonely; if he had
> someone to play with, he would be happier." But I definitely won't use
> "that" for the relative clause. Also I want to say that "can" and "could" in
> this sentence don't sound wrong because we got used to listen to many errors
> in modern spoken English that we are just simply having hard time to define
> what is wrong and what is right. When millions of people speak in an
> improper way it is kind of hard to say that everyone of them is wrong.
> Respectfully yours, Aram