Please help with Latin verb "sit"

[hswarden]

I received this question today in my mailbox. Someone obviously has mistaken me for a person who would have the foggiest idea. Is there someone here who can respond? I promise not to pretend the answer came from me.

I am wondering if you might help me with a Latin issue. I want to know everything you can tell me about the verb, sit.
I think it is something like subjunctive in nature, as meaning something may be. As in:

Quod sit quiddam optimum et maximum et summum omnium quae sunt.

which I translate as:

That there may be something best, greatest, and highest of all things that are.

Or the phrase:

Quomodo intelligendum sit, quia fecit omnia ex nihilo.

which I translate as:

How it may be understood that it creates all things out of nothing.

Are these translations correct, and are they the best ways to translate sit? I would like to know all of the grammatical issues involved in this verb form.

[Plaid Dad]

Can you just direct the person to a Latin grammar? There are many online via Google Books or textkit.com. Sit is indeed a present subjunctive form, but "all of the grammatical issues" can hardly be covered in an email. :)

[hswarden]

Plaid Dad, I was thinking you would be a person with some insight on this. I agree that for "all the grammatical issues" he needs to do some work. I don't even know the guy who sent me this email, but I think he teaches for a major university. If he translated these lines, he must have access to a grammar! Can you tell me whether his translations are good?