On Thursday 12/23/2010 at 3:25 pm, "Spruiell, William C" wrote:

Dick,

It shows up in some other subordinate constructions, although I *think* they all have an element of negation or irrealis status ("I wonder when he'll ever finish that" / "If he were ever there, he would have known this"); I recall Quirk and Greenbaum having a section on this, but I don't have it handy (coffee shop posting). I'm having trouble thinking of any examples in a main clause that don't sound archaic, but there are candidate expressions "He was ever the optimist/pessimist" and "It was ever thus." I suspect a lot of people would count those as fossilized, though.

--- Bill Spruiell

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Dick Veit
Sent: Thu 12/23/2010 9:25 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Independent clause or noun phrase

"The last grill brush" is a noun phrase, with an implied "it is." The "you
will ever need" is a relative clause with a null (unstated) relative
pronoun.

I'd like to hear more from ATEGers about "ever." Am I wrong that it occurs
without a negative only in relative clauses like this? "You won't ever need
a grill brush" is fine, but not *"You will ever need a grill brush."

Dick

On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 8:35 AM, Scott Lavitt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Happy holidays all.

I've been a member of this listserve for years and occasionally seek your
collective opinion. Question: how does one parse the following?:

The last grill brush you will ever need.

I could see this as an independent clause, with "you" as the subj. and "The
last grill brush" as the DO, but that doesn't seem right. Seems there is an
implied "It is," making the above a noun phrase, and therefore not an
independent clause. Thoughts?

Thank you,

Scott Lavitt

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