Questions & Answers about Если бы ночь не была штормовой, я бы спал.
Since this lesson is about defective verbs, what would happen if I swapped спал for a defective verb like победить (to win)?
Defective verbs only lack a 1st-person singular form in the present or future tense. Because the conditional mood always uses the past tense (which changes by gender, not person), defective verbs work perfectly here! Just like you say я бы спал, you can absolutely say я бы победил (I would win).
Why is штормовой in the instrumental case here rather than the nominative штормовая?
When describing what something was like using the past tense of быть (here, была), Russian typically uses the instrumental case for the adjective. This is especially true for temporary states or conditions, like a storm happening on a specific night.
Could I change the word order and say я спал бы instead of я бы спал?
Why use the imperfective verb спал instead of a perfective verb like поспал?