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Announcement

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2016 1:11 pm
by glorybee
I'm going to be giving this forum a bit of a break, in that I won't be writing a weekly lesson for a while.

I'll still happily answer any questions you might have about writing, and will consider expanding any of those questions to an entire lesson, if it seems like it would be of general interest.

Sometimes Deb suggests a lesson idea for me, and sometimes my editing jobs suggest one--if either of those happen, I'll write a lesson for those, too.

But there just doesn't seem to be much demand for weekly lessons here anymore; I suppose it's part of the general reduction of interest in most of these forums (for example, the 'brick throwing' forum is no longer).

So this is a standing invitation for your ideas and questions--and please check back every now and then to see if a new lesson has been posted.

Re: Announcement

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 5:36 pm
by oursilverstrands
Jan wrote:So this is a standing invitation for your ideas and questions
Jan, I always try to find the answer to my question in one of your previous lessons, but I'm never successful at it. So please forgive if this has been covered before. If so, please point out where.

Sentence: May God's love surround you.

Question: Is the above sentence the same principle as "The Fruit of the Spirit is...(singular)
Love is singular (I think), but you don't write May God's love surrounds you.

Or is the sentence grammatically more like May God's Love you surround? :roll:

Thanks,

Lillian

Re: Announcement

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 6:27 pm
by glorybee
"May" is a part of the verb phrase. A slight rearrangement makes this clearer:

God's love may surround you.

With 'may' (and with its friend 'might'), you use the present tense.

Re: Announcement

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 8:21 pm
by oursilverstrands
Thanks, Jan, but I don't think my question was clear enough. Even in your rewritten example, if I were to leave out the "May," then the sentence would read: "God's love surrounds you." If I were to substitute "it" for God's love, then it would also be "surrounds" you. So what is it about "May" grammatically that drops the "s" other than it sounds wrong?

Lillian

Re: Announcement

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 8:31 pm
by glorybee
lish1936 wrote:Thanks, Jan, but I don't think my question was clear enough. Even in your rewritten example, if I were to leave out the "May," then the sentence would read: "God's love surrounds you." If I were to substitute "it" for God's love, then it would also be "surrounds" you. So what is it about "May" grammatically that drops the "s" other than it sounds wrong?

Lillian
Well, we're knocking at the limits of my knowledge here. I do know that 'may' is a modal verb, which indicates likelihood, ability, permission, or obligation. (Other modal verbs include can/could, may/might, must, will/would, and shall/should). And since these verbs are also auxillary verbs, they're paired up with another verb to determine how they work in a sentence. So leaving out the 'may' just doesn't work--as you've seen, it changes the function of the verb in that sentence, and thus it changes the meaning. You can separate the two parts of the verb (May God's love surround you), but they're still only one verb (albeit a verb phrase), and modal verbs (verb phrases) take the present tense. As you said, it sounds right.

I hope that was clearer. It's all I've got. :D

Re: Announcement

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 9:12 pm
by oursilverstrands
Jan wrote:I hope that was clearer. It's all I've got

:thankssign It was.

Lillian