Questions about the grammaticality of these sentences.

Hello, I just wonder the following four sentences are grammatically correct or not. Please pay attention to the negative polarity item "ever"

1) The farmer has ever planted trees.
2) The farmer who has ever planted trees smokes.

3) The farmers have ever planted trees.
4) The farmers who have ever planted trees smoke.

Thanks in advance.

[Touchwood]

The four sentences are, I believe, all grammatically correct; however, normal english usage would be to use "always" in place of "ever" in all four sentences.

Mike

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by NPIs

1) The farmer has ever planted trees.
2) The farmer who has ever planted trees smokes.
3) The farmers have ever planted trees.
4) The farmers who have ever planted trees smoke.

From a North American point of view, all four are semantically awkward.

[Hayseed]

I guarantee you that if you walked up to a native English speaker and said any one of those sentences alone, you`d get no response. Grammatically correct or not, they simply DO NOT work. There isn`t enough information given, and no native speaker would ever "word" a sentence like that.

If you did get a response, it`d probably be one you didn`t like.

[Touchwood]

Hayseed,

your response seems a little aggressive, don't you think? The idea is to help these people, not to pointlessly criticise.

Mike

[Casiopea]

Please stick to the topic at hand. If you feel a poster's reply is inappropriate, bring it to the moderators' or site editor's attention.

[Touchwood]

Casiopea

I take your point. My apologies.

Mike

[Kirte]

Hi, all.

Thank you very much for replying. Very helpful.

Have a nice day.

[Tdol]

You would be unlikely to use such a sentence in a conversation, but they would be fine in a political speech or other case where rhetorical devices would be acceptable:

Farmers have ever planted trees on this stretch of land and it would be an invasion of their right blablabla...