English Language Learners Asked on October 1, 2021
I understand that this is a kind of a set phrase to express the hope that his spirit has found peace after death, but I don’t understand why subject-auxiliary inversion occurs, and the "May" comes first in this example.
The same sentence structure can be seen in some other examples too like the below ones.
Is there any grammatical rule? Are there any other examples that follow the same sentence construction?
None of these expressions are common and, except in the fixed phrases all should be avoided and replaced by the "if" or similar phrase. They are all rather dated.
These inversions occur in many subjunctive phrases, particularly when they are expressing conditional phrases:
Should you arrive late... (= If you arrive late)
Had he not forgotten his ticket... (= If he had not forgotten his ticket)
In non-conditional forms this inversion is seen also with "may" and in fixed expressions:
Long live the king!
May the king live long.
It is also worth noting the similar:
Let the king live long!
Which is most well known in the expression
Let's (do something).
(but the pronoun has object form here)
Correct answer by James K on October 1, 2021
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