Consider the following exchange:
Alice: Did Charlotte send you that email?
Bob: No, but I'm sure she'll send it eventually.
In this case, there's no upper bound on the period of time in which Charlotte can send the email to Bob for his expectation to be met. Suppose I want it to be limited by some point in the past or in the future:
Alice: Did Charlotte send you that email last month?
Bob: No, but I'm sure she sent it eventually.
Can Bob say that? What about:
Alice: Did Charlotte send you that email last month?
Bob: No, but I'm sure she sent it eventually-by-one-week-ago.
And what about:
Alice: Did Charlotte send you that email last month?
Bob: No, but I'm sure she has sent/did send/will send it eventually-by-one-month-from-now.
How can Bob express his certainty that the email was sent, or will be sent, at some point in time between the day Alice mentioned and the limit time Bob is referring to?
Best Answer
I would say that the use of eventually in the second example was possible. If Alice’s emphasis is on last month, then Bob would mean that Charlotte sent the email at some later date, without being sure exactly when.
I can’t easily imagine anyone saying or writing Bob’s speech in your third example. What he might say would be something like ‘No, but I'm sure she sent it eventually. I’ve got an idea I got it around the middle of January.’