In the following example, what kind of clause is "however long and hard the road may be"?
"You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
From what I understand, "at all costs" and "in spite of all terror" are adjective phrases describing victory (though I'm not really sure if they're describing what kind of victory or describing "victory" otherwise), but "however long and hard the road may be" confuses me because of the inverted word order, usage of the auxiliary "may", and the introduction of the subject "road" rather then referring to victory again. I don't understand the clauses' relationship to "victory" if it even modifies that. Perhaps it is modifying the predicate "is victory", answering to what extent is the aim victory or something of the sort. I understand the lexical and semantic meanings as well as morphological roles of the words, but the syntax evades me.
Thank you
"You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
From what I understand, "at all costs" and "in spite of all terror" are adjective phrases describing victory (though I'm not really sure if they're describing what kind of victory or describing "victory" otherwise), but "however long and hard the road may be" confuses me because of the inverted word order, usage of the auxiliary "may", and the introduction of the subject "road" rather then referring to victory again. I don't understand the clauses' relationship to "victory" if it even modifies that. Perhaps it is modifying the predicate "is victory", answering to what extent is the aim victory or something of the sort. I understand the lexical and semantic meanings as well as morphological roles of the words, but the syntax evades me.
Thank you