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Originally Posted by Gilbert The "may/may not" issue reminds me of something else:
is there a difference between these situations?
A
- May I (do something)?
- No, you may not!
B
- May I (do something)?
- No, you must not (mustn't).
I don't think the second one is ok, it does sound sort of awkward to me. |
'may' doesn't operate in real English as it's often described in grammar books.
"Despite a well-known prescription favoring 'may' rather than 'can' expressing permission, 'may' is especially rare in the sense of permission. Interestingly, many of the instances of 'may' marking permission in the LSWE corpus are produced by caregivers in conversations with children." [LSWE pg 493]
An answer, as in A, above, sounds overly severe. It's certainly possible but what is used depends, this is important, on the effect that the speaker wants.
In B, again, a 'must not' is possible, but it too sounds harsh because 'must' is a strong prohibition. If the speaker wants to express such, then of course it will/would work. Modals state our emotions and strong emotive responses are not as common as the more neutral ones.
May/Can I do sth?, is more likely to be met with a 'uh-huh/un-un/yup/nope/no you can't/yes you can/well maybe/if you're good/if you clean your room/the possibilites are myriad.