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From: Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org>
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Sometimes I forget I was ever a child.
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2024 20:22:15 +1000
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On 17/09/24 18:57, tonbei wrote:

> "ever" is an emphatic word, so here it emphasizes the quoted
> sentence. If so, still what I don't know is which part is emphasized
>  "I forget sometimes" or "I was a child", or the whole sentence.

Let's restore the original sentences.

> Sometimes I forget I was ever a child. Ever young and stupid and
> trusting.” ("Port Mortuary" by Patricia Cornwell, p258)

I guess the point has already been made that "ever" has a different
meaning in the two sentences. In the second sentence "ever" just means
"always". That's the simple case.

In the first sentence the negative-polarity "forget" makes the "ever"
mean "at any time". (Rather than the "at every time" meaning it would
have in a positive-polarity sentence.) Switching to a positive form of the
statement, we get "sometimes I believe that I was never a child".

The "never" and "ever" here are absolutes. In either form, the sentence
is stronger than weaker forms like "I forget that I was once a child"
which concede that he/she was a child for at least some of the time.

So I guess the answer to your question is that "ever" emphasizes the
clause "I was a child".

-- 
Peter Moylan       peter@pmoylan.org    http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW