# EN: mayn't she?



## Michael-78

Bonjour,

Je voudrais ajouter un "tag interrogatif" à cette phrase:
_I suppose she may have been_ _influenced by the play_, ... ?

Comme, par exemple:
_He never smokes, ... ?_ --> _He never smokes, *does he*?_

Mais, je crois que je n'ai jamais lu ou entendu _mayn't _alors que dirait-on?
Mon essai serait:
_I suppose she may have been_ _influenced by the play_, *can't she*?
Mais je sais si on peut changer l'auxiliaire comme ça.

Merci à l'avance


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## shanya

J'aurais plutot dit " was she?" instead of can't she.. 
c'est une probabilité donc "can" ne semble pas le bon question tag ici.


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## Tim~!

_Mayn't _exists (as does _mightn't_) but is very rarely used.

If I were you I'd add a question tag but slightly amended:

... , don't you think?

... , wouldn't you say?


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## Welshie

You can also say "may she not?", but this is also little used.


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## jann

The first problem with "mayn't" is that it overwhelmingly suggests permission instead of possibility, at least to my American ear... and that it isn't often used as a tag.   

"May I have another cookie?"  "No you mayn't."
"Jennie may have another cookie, mayn't she?"

The second problem is that the tense of the tag must reflect the tense of the sentence.  Your sentence is set in the past:  she may have enjoyed... so any tag that uses "she" as the subject will also need a past tense conjugation.  But "mayn't she" or "may she not" are both present tense.  

She enjoyed the play, doesn't she? didn't she?
She has enjoyed the play, has she not?
She may have enjoyed the play, mayn't she may she not have?

At that point, the tag almost is as long as the sentence! 

Tim has given the most natural-sounding tags that I can think of for this sentence.  By changing the subject of the tag (from "she" to "you"), you avoid all the problems.

That said, question tags indicate the speaker's doubt by asking for confirmation from the listener.  If you are indicating your doubt with "may have" (_il se peut que..._), then it's a bit redundant indicate your doubt yet again with a question tag (_il se peut que..., n'est-ce pas ?_).


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## Conrad Jay

Mayn't she is correct, if rather formal.
It would be more natural to use a tag if you did not begin "I suppose"", but simply 
"She may have been influences by the play, mayn't she?"
In more informal English, replace may with might or with could. The meaning is not exactly the same, but the difference is small


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## geostan

My simple answer is that I would never use _mayn't_. If I had to use _may_ negatively, I would say: _may she not_. But I would probably avoid the situation altogether and find some other way of expressing the idea.

Sorry, Jann, but your two examples with _mayn't_ sound really strange to me.


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## tedgale

1. To me, mayn't doesn't sound at all strange. 
2. I think it is highly desirable, though perhaps not essential in spoken English, to maintain symmetry in any interrogative tag: may/ mayn't, can/ can't/ have/ haven't etc.
3. To me, "I may have a cookie, can't I?" sounds weird.
4. People who can't bring themselves to say "mayn't" probably don't use "may" either!! EG: "I can have a cookie, can't I?" is very common, though not formally correct.
5. "May she not" or "has she not" or "did she not" are also correct but sound quite arch and deliberately facetious, to my ear.  
6. "I suppose she may have been influenced by the play" is not wrong but it contains something close to a redundancy: I would write "I suppose she was influenced by the play" OR "She may have been influenced by the play". "May" indicates uncertainty, so there is no real need to say "I suppose".


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## sound shift

I don't think I've ever heard anyone use "mayn't" in a tag question.


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## tedgale

"One never knows, do one?"
- Fats Waller, popular black US songwriter and performer, 1904-1943.


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## geostan

tedgale said:


> 4. People who can't bring themselves to say "mayn't" probably don't use "may" either!!



Not true. I use may frequently. It's mayn't that I don't use.


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## jann

geostan said:


> Not true. I use may frequently. It's mayn't that I don't use.





geostan said:


> My simple answer is that I would never use _mayn't_. If I had to use _may_ negatively, I would say: _may she not_. But I would probably avoid the situation altogether and find some other way of expressing the idea.
> 
> Sorry, Jann, but your two examples with _mayn't_ sound really strange to me.


hi Geostan,

I think that _many't_ is on the rare side, and there are lots of people who just don't use it at all, but this word is definitely part of my working vocabulary.  That said, I don't use it often:  it's too authoritative, so it would only work if e.g. speaking to a child (especially a child who knows perfectly well that "no, he may not...").  With other people, I wouldn't want to put myself in the position of giving permission like that.  Of my two example sentences, the first is something I would actually say.  

The second was just intended as an example of how _mayn't_ would work as a tag, on the grammatical level.  I wanted a present tense sentence to demonstrate the tense issue with question tags. Personally,  I don't think I ever use _mayn't_ as a tag; to my ear, it would conjure up images of very proper, old-fashioned, elderly British ladies, possibly from the last century.


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## Michael-78

Very helpful, thank you very much!

By the way, this sentence is extracted from a grammar book.


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## marget

Michael-78 said:


> Very helpful, thank you very much!
> 
> By the way, this sentence is extracted from a grammar book.


 
Did the book include the intended correct response?


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## geostan

The only time I could imagine myself using _mayn't_ would be in a jocular vein.


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## Michael-78

marget said:


> Did the book include the intended correct response?



No, unfortunately not. You have to buy another book to get the answers


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## Chris' Spokesperson

_I suppose she may have been influenced by the play, may she not?_

There is no other way of constructing this sentence as far as I can see unless you want to mimic what the sentence in French would look like;

_I suppose she may have been influenced by the play, is it not?_  (n'est-ce pas?)

This is very rarely done in English these days and certainly if a non-native speaker said it it would be understood as a mistake.  The implication is that 'is it not?' refers to the previous sentence as a case, a state of being (is it not the case that she may have been...)

It is incorrect and cumbersome to repeat the 'have' at the end _'may she not have?'_ because the have is only indicating tense, it would be more correct but also even more cumbersome to say_ 'may she not have been?_'   The emphasiser only needs to apply to 'may'.  She may go, may she not?  She may have had to go walking, may she not?  She may be going to have to remember having done that, may she not?

No matter how complex the tenses contained in the sentence you only enforce the fact of whether it may or may not have happened, is it not?


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## jann

> It is incorrect and cumbersome to repeat the 'have' at the end _'may she not have (been)?'_


I certainly don't dispute that it's cumbersome, but I'm not at all convinced it's incorrect.   I really do feel that the tense of the tag needs to reflect the tense verb it refers back to.  I'll see if I can find any outside references on the topic.


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## Chris' Spokesperson

I don't know if there is a rule relating to it but certainly I would never repeat the tense in any similar circumstance:  _She should have gone, should she not?  She will have gone, will she not?_ 

Imagine that it is not a tag, imagine that it is someone else asking a question in response, if there is a rule then it would surely dictate that it would apply there also:

- _She may have been influenced by the play._
_- May she?_

Asking _'May she have?'_ seems gratuitous when really the question is just _'Is that possible?', 'May she?'  _The probability/possibility of the situation doesn't relate to time, it seems quite like the subjunctive en français which also doesn't relate to time, it's a mode rather than a tense.  If she was influenced by the play then that has been true since that moment, is true now (as we are discussing it) and will continue to be true ad infinitum.  If you wanted to question the statement yourself would you ask _"May she have?" _or _"May she?"  _

I'm basing this mainly on ear but the former strikes me as wrong...albeit wrong by beauty of sound alone!


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