Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 14:57:15 -0700

From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU

Subject: Re: may/might distinction



Ron,

I "feel" the old "sequence of tenses" agreement, and occasionally

find myself doing a double-take, though not so visceral a reaction as yours,

apparently. There are things like regularized strong verbs that hit me

unconsciously, and then my conscious linguistic relativism asserts itself,

unless it is a formal student paper, in which case I get out my Fidditch red

pencil -- but that I consider a teaching/socializing responsibility. In the

may/might pair, there is also the fact that might has come to be expressive

of less probability than may which enters into the schema.

--Rudy

--Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu)