Amjad
I have a question Is it okay to say "you must be sleeping " ??
2018年8月9日 01:59
评论 · 5
4
It’s grammatically correct and naturally phrased, but there are some possible issues. First of all, the word “must” usually (90% of the time) is used for speculation, so the meaning is most likely that the speaker is fairly sure that the person addressed is sleeping. Actually, the continuous aspect “be sleeping” (which has the same meaning as “be asleep”) makes any other interpretation very unlikely. If we meant “must” as in “have to”, we would say “you have to sleep” (in theory, we could use “must” with this meaning, but it would be unusual, and ambiguous). Finally, if we interpret the sentence in the most usual way (as expressing the speaker's belief that the person addressed is sleeping), it’s a bit funny, since we don’t normally speak to people we know to be asleep.... Of course, it could be a polite way of asking the other person if they are asleep or not.

2018年8月9日
3

Upvote for Phil's explanation.  "You must be sleeping" means "I guess that you're sleeping at the moment", which is a grammatically correct but rather unusual thing to say.,

And a good suggestion from <a href="https://www.italki.com/user/4075908">مُحَمَّدُ Mu</a>.  Yes, if you're in a chatroom and the person you're trying to talk to isn't answering, you could perhaps write, "You must be sleeping. I'll log off now."

2018年8月9日
1

Phil, what about if the sentence is said in a chat box? It  could make sense then, right? 

Greetings to all!

2018年8月9日
1
Yea, that's fine
2018年8月9日
Thank you
2018年8月9日