Emphasis

Hello everyone!

In an exercise (open cloze type) on 'word order, inversion and emphasis' there is the following sentence:
"Even more surprisingly, every single letter ___ receive an answer."

According to the teacher's book the only correct word to fill in the gap is 'will'. Do you know why 'does' (as to emphasize) is wrong, and only 'will' is acceptable in this case?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[Philly]

Hi

You could also use does or even did for emphasis if that is a stand-alone sentence. However, a broader context might prevent the use of the simple present tense or the simple past tense.

[Fallen_Angel]

Philly, thank you for your reply.

I'm afraid that neither 'does' nor 'did' can be used in this case; at least not if I am to trust the teacher's book. Note that when more than one answer is acceptable, all possible answers are mentioned in the teacher's book. In this gap only 'will' is provided as an acceptable answer. So, I have to suppose that it's the only word that can be used.

What you said about the broader context preventing the use of other tenses crossed my mind. However, I fail to see how this is the case. And to be more precise, the sentence was part of this paragraph:

[...]Text about Verona and the 'Romeo and Juliet' myth.[...]
But it is Juliet who gets most of the attention these days. Bizarrely, the local post office receives about 5,000 letters a year from all over the world, addressed to her as a kind of international agony aunt. Even more surprisingly, every single letter ___ receive an answer. Verona has founded a voluntary organisation, The Juliet Club, to reply to each and every letter personally. Not until you have read some of the letters, do you realise how deep some people’s need is to pour out their feelings. Many of the problems are timeless: parental opposition to teenage love, and the trials of marriage and divorce. But why people should turn to Juliet is a mystery.
[...]Text goes on about the myth[...]

So, question remains: why is 'will' the only word that we are allowed to use in this gap?

Again, thank you for your help.

[queenbu]

Originally Posted by Fallen_Angel

Text about Verona and the 'Romeo and Juliet' myth.[...][/COLOR]
But it is Juliet who gets most of the attention these days. Bizarrely, the local post office receives about 5,000 letters a year from all over the world, addressed to her as a kind of international agony aunt. Even more surprisingly, every single letter ___ receive an answer. Verona has founded a voluntary organisation, The Juliet Club, to reply to each and every letter personally. Not until you have read some of the letters, do you realise how deep some people’s need is to pour out their feelings. Many of the problems are timeless: parental opposition to teenage love, and the trials of marriage and divorce. But why people should turn to Juliet is a mystery.
[...]Text goes on about the myth[...]

So, question remains: why is 'will' the only word that we are allowed to use in this gap?

Again, thank you for your help.

Is it because 'Verona has founded a voluntary organisation' means that the organisation has just been founded and will start to answer the letters? If it were, for example, 'Verona founded a voluntary organisation three years ago' then maybe 'does' would be acceptable? 'Did' seems more unacceptable given the context.

[Philly]

Without context, it is often impossible to give an answer. You posted a single sentence with no other context, Fallen Angel, so it was not possible to give a definitive answer. Without context, any attempt to provide an answer to the original question would have been strictly guesswork.
.
Now that you have provided the broader context, it is clear that 'did' is impossible and I agree with queenbu's take on 'does': 'Does' is not appropriate because of the use of the present perfect in the following sentence: "Verona has founded a voluntary organisation, The Juliet Club, to reply to each and every letter personally."
.
The Juliet Club was founded just recently and the reason for founding it was in order to reply to all the letters received. This suggests that 1) in the past, not all of the letters were answered, and 2) the club is currently working on answering a backlog of letters. Many of the letters are still unanswered, but will be answered in the future.

[Fallen_Angel]

Thank you both very much!