grammar - meaning of "maybe she did see"



what is the difference between:



maybe she did see



and



maybe she saw



is it a grammatical usage of maybe?



Answer



No, it's a pragmatic difference.


Auxiliary "do/does/did" in a declarative sentence (i.e. not a question and not negative) is emphatic, often contrastive.


So "Maybe she saw" is neutral; "Maybe she did see" is emphatic, or contrastive. The precise connotation depends on the context, but probably somebody had suggested, or the speaker has been thinking, that she did not see, and is now considering, as a new idea, the possibility that she did.


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