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Teo Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

What if someone/anyone

01. What if someone breaks the law?02br
02br
002. What if anyone breaks the law?02br
02br
00What's the difference in meaning or style between the above two sentences?0-
  

Top answer

0 Hello Teo02br 02br 00I think the two are almost the same in the meaning. By the first, I feel the speaker is taking "someone breaks the law" as an event easily to happen. I cannot feel this sort of speaker's intention from the second sentence.

— Paco2004

  • 0 Hello Teo02br 02br 00I think the two are almost the same in the meaning.
  • By the first, I feel the speaker is taking "someone breaks the law" as an event easily to happen.
  • I cannot feel this sort of speaker's intention from the second sentence.
  • 02br 02br 00paco 0-
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5 Answers
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0 Hello Teo02br
02br
00I think the two are almost the same in the meaning. By the first, I feel the speaker is taking "someone breaks the law" as an event easily to happen. I cannot feel this sort of speaker's intention from the second sentence. But please remind this is my personal view and I believe others would have different opinions.02br
02br
00paco 
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0 I only use the first one. The second one sounds wrong, or at least difficult to contextualize.02br
00 It seems to me that there are restrictions on when 01i00anyone02i00 or 01i00anybody02i00 or 01i00anything02i00 can be used as a subject, although I'm not sure how to characterize these restrictions in terms of r
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0Googlily:02br
00"if someone breaks the rule" : 24002br
00"if anyone breaks the rule" : 12502br
02br
00paco0-
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0 Paco,02br
02br
00 I sense that the distribution will be very different for "01u00what02u00 if". I don't have a clear idea why at this time, but I think it's because "what if" does not really create an if-clause semantically. It means something more like "01u00What do we do in the situation in which02u00 [someone breaks the
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0 01blockquote
01cite10CalifJim12cite10I sense that the distribution will be very different for "what if". I don't have a clear idea why at this time, but I think it's because "what if" does not really create an if-clause semantically. It means something more like "What do we do in the situation in which [someone breaks the law]?", a paraphrase which
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