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ESLBeginner Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

Maybe if

Hi, would someone please tell me how to understand the grammar here? I know "if" can be used to connect two clauses, e.g. "If you go, I will go too"; so I feel following sentences are incomplete in meaning because there's not a second clause to explain the result of "if", and so I guess this is a grammar knowledge I don't know:
Thank you in advance.
  

Top answer

There are elisions which would come clear with the context. Maybe if we apologized with greater deference [then they would accept it more readily]. Maybe if my brain worked deja vu.

— Mister Micawber

  • There are elisions which would come clear with the context.
  • Maybe if we apologized with greater deference [then they would accept it more readily].
  • Maybe if my brain worked deja vu.
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2 Answers
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There are elisions which would come clear with the context.

Maybe if we apologized with greater deference [then they would accept it more readily].
Maybe if my brain worked deja vu.
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ESLBeginner
  • Maybe If We Apologized With Greater Deference.
  • Deja vu? Maybe if my brain worked.
    • maybe if by itself is not a special idiom, if that's what you're asking. The maybe goes with the implied (missing) consequent clause, which you have to work out from the context.

    If we apologized with gr
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