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On the scalar antonymy of only and even

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Abstract

An old observation about the focus sensitive particles only and even is that they are in some sense scalar antonyms. We examine three schematic proposals raised in the literature to capture this observation, namely that only vs. even presuppose that the proposition denoted by their prejacent, p, is lower vs. higher, respectively (A) than what is EXPECTED/the default STANDARD (the ‘mirative/evaluative antonymy’ view), (B) than SOME (salient) alternative in the set of contextually relevant focus alternatives, C, (the ‘existential antonymy’ view), or (C) than ALL alternatives in C (the ‘superlative antonymy’ view). To tease these views apart, we examine the behavior of only vs. even in a wide range of contexts and types of discourse, concentrating on the way the C set of contextually relevant alternatives with only (C) (p) and even (C) (p) is constrained by the interaction of (i) previously uttered sentences and (ii) the salient QUD. Based on these examinations we argue for the preferability of the ‘superlative antonymy’ view of only and even. In contrast, we argue that the ‘existential’ antonymy and the ‘mirative/evaluative’ antonymy between only and even are apparent. The former only holds in specific contexts where one alternative to p is made maximally salient. As to the latter, we show that while an evaluative (‘above the standard’ / ‘a lot’) inference is hardwired into the scalar presupposition of even, alongside the superlative inference, the mirror imaged one (‘below the standard’ / ‘a little’) is cancellable for only. We propose that this inference can be derived from the interaction of the superlative scalar presupposition of only and domain based constraints on alternatives in C.

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Notes

  1. As Zimmermann (2014) points out, this pattern is supported by the fact that in many languages, only-like particles get even-like interpretations in downward-entailing environments.

  2. See Rooth (1992, 1996) for the way to compositionally derive the focus semantic value of S and the set C. Notice also that we take both only and even to take sentential scope, and the focus domain (in the sense of, e.g., Rooth 1992) is assumed to be the entire sentence in all examples below, even if the surface position of these particles is different.

  3. This is a debated assumption, but in this paper we follow it.

  4. Thanks to a reviewer for this example.

  5. Previous theories assume non-scalar entries for cases like (7), which assert the negation of all alternatives distinct from ||S||O (i.e., distinct from p) in C (see, e.g., Horn 1969; Rooth 1985, 1992).

  6. We are ignoring here the debated presence of the additive presupposition with even.

  7. There are two earlier suggestions for a superlative scalar presupposition for only that the present suggestion partially builds on. The first is made in Beaver and Clark (2008: 251), seen in (i), where CQ is the Current Question:

    1. (i)

      Presupposition: The strongest true alternatives in the CQ are at least as strong as the prejacent.

      Descriptive Content: The strongest true alternatives in the CQ are at most as strong as the prejacent.   [Original emphasis]

    Orenstein and Greenberg (2011) and Orenstein (2016), however, point out that the ‘at most’ component in (i) wrongly predicts only to be felicitous in cases like (ii), uttered in a context where I got a double room with a bath is considered to be as strong on the relevant scale as I got a single room with a Jacuzzi. A similar example is given in (iii):

    1. (i)

      The hotel has a variety of rooms: single, double, with showers, with baths, with a jacuzzi. I expected a single room with a Jacuzzi, but (#only) got a double room with a bath.

    1. (i)

      #John has at least 20 students in his course and only 20 arrived today.

    A second suggestion is made in Orenstein and Greenberg (2013) and Orenstein (2016):

    1. (i)

      λC.λp.λw: w∈p ∧ ∀q [[q∈C ∧ q is salient ∧ q≠p]→ q >p]. ∀q [[q∈C ∧ q>sp] → w∉q]

    While (iv) also accounts for the infelicity of only in (18)-(19), in this paper we adopt the version of the presupposition in (22). One reason for this is that (iv) has different requirements for different sets of alternatives, namely an assertion concerning all alternatives in C and a presupposition only over a ‘salient’ subset of C, which is not a usual pattern for focus sensitive particles. More importantly, (22) is more helpful than (iv) in capturing the mirror imaged infelicity patterns of only and even (see (23)).

  8. By ‘previously uttered’, we mean only those which are uttered ‘close enough’ before only S/even S. This is clearly a vague characterization, but we suspect it reflects an inherent vagueness in deciding how far previously uttered sentences can still be in order to be influential regarding the alternatives to p in C. We leave further examination of this point to future research.

  9. There are some potential interactions of the focus marking, givenness and accentuation in such cases (see Selkirk 1984, 1995; Schwarzschild 1999), which we hope to examine in future research. These interactions do not seem to risk the narrative presented here. For example, while given Selkirk (1995), F-marking a direct object can lead to F-marking the entire VP (through F-projection), this mechanism does not seem to concern FOC(us)-marking, namely marking the element introducing alternatives. (I mark FOC(us) here via [ ]F, following Rooth 1992, and other theories). This is supported by the fact that the felicity contrast in (25) is also seen in the question-answer pairs in (i) and (ii):

    1. (i)
      1. A:

        I know that John usually reviews 10 papers a year and writes 5. How many papers did he review this year?

      2. B:

        This year he (only) reviewed [6]F.

    1. (ii)
      1. A:

        I know that John usually reviews 10 papers a year and writes 5. How many papers did he write this year?

      2. B:

        This year he (#only) wrote [6]F.

  10. Importantly, this additional requirement on C seems to be independent of the truth of the superlative scalar presupposition hypothesis. Rather, it is needed even if one assumes instead that the infelicity of only in (25b) is due to the requirement on non-vacuity of only (see again Sect. 1 and Sect. 2 above), i.e., the requirement that C must have at least one alternative stronger than the prejacent that can be negated. In particular, given the C sets in (25’), constructed based on requirement (24) alone, the non-vacuity constraint would wrongly predict both sentences in (25) to be felicitous, since p is not the strongest alternative in either (25’a) or (25’b).

  11. See, for example, the discussion of QUD-shifts in Simons et al. (2010) in the context of projectivity phenomena (which are taken to depend on relevance to the salient QUD).

  12. We assume that this indeed is the salient QUD, despite the declarative form of They are of the same age. The addition of right? indicates that the speaker is not sure about the answer (though she is biased toward a positive answer), so we can take the question to be as in (38’). We postpone investigation of the relationship between (non-)biased questions and their ability to function as the QUD to future research.

  13. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for these examples.

  14. A reviewer points out that a variant of (50a), as in (i), is odd (though still better than (50b) with even):

    1. (i) 

      Both dresses are expensive. The blue one costs $100. The second one is (?only) $75. So it is cheaper but still expensive.

    A direction for explaining this observation relies on the existence of the adjective in the positive form in the sentence before only S, which is assumed to involve the covert degree modifier pos (see Kennedy and McNally 2005) and to be true iff both dresses have a degree of cost that is above the standard. On the one hand, then, we have a previously uttered sentence which can be taken as an answer to the same QUD that p answers (e.g., How much does the dress cost? It costs more than the standard is felicitous) and which can be used to construct an alternative to p (substituting pos for $75, assuming both of them are of the same type, namely < <d,t>,t>). On the other hand, pos is covert, and the standard in its interpretation is a variable that gets its value from the context. Given this latter fact, the saliency of the alternative and its membership in C may not be clear. This may explain why only sounds odd (at least to some speakers) but is not utterly infelicitous. We leave a more thorough examination of this case and the implications for the way covert material can affect the construction of alternatives in C to future research.

  15. A reviewer points out that a listener of an only-sentence like (ia) is entitled to react to it by saying “What do you mean ‘only $250?’’’ (see also (48a)):

    1. (i)

      Bill charges $300 for his lessons, and/but Mary charges only $250.

    We take such a listener to question whether the standard cost of lessons (assumed to be lower than $250) is not salient enough, and so an alternative constructed based on it should necessarily enter C. In future research, we hope to examine the idea that there is a continuum of saliency (perhaps relativized to different speakers), which affects membership of alternatives in C.

  16. See Liu (2017) for a similar application of Krifka (2000) to explain the evaluativity effects of Mandarin jiu.

  17. For example, as a reviewer points out, the temporal scale is available for still but not only:

    1. (i)

      Mary is still/#only here

    See Umbach (2009) and Beck (2020) on the types of scales for noch/still and Zimmermann (2018) on schon/already.

  18. This derivation of the evaluative (‘a little’) effect of only seems better than attempts to derive this effect from non-vacuity (cf. Alxatib 2020). Consider, for example, (i) in a context where there are 10 levels of price for pens in this shop. The requirement that there is at least one alternative stronger than p in C is not enough to capture the fact that $10 is considered a low price, since it can in principle be the second- or third-highest price:

    1. (i)

      This pen costs only [$10]F.

  19. A similar mechanism is proposed in Umbach (2009) regarding cases where additive noch combines with a comparative, leading to a ‘beyond the norm’ effect when uttered ‘out of the blue’, but not when uttered after another comparative.

  20. It would be interesting to compare this suggestion to Beaver and Clark (2008). On the one hand, Beaver and Clark take the discourse function of only to “make a comment on the Current Question … which weakens a salient or natural expectation. To achieve this function, the prejacent must be weaker than the expected answer to the CQ on a salient scale” (2008: 251). On the other hand, they suggest that this ‘mirative’ function can be derived from the MIN and MAX operators, in the semantics of only, which are relativized to the information state σ. Beaver and Clark (2008: 261) point out that “[i]n a full analysis, the state σ would keep track not only of the common ground of the participants and the questions under discussion, but also their expectations.”

  21. Another interesting question for further research is whether the distinction between hardwired vs. derived evaluativity argued here for even vs. only holds more generally for all even-like and only-like particles crosslinguistically. A preliminary examination seems to suggest that, at least for exclusive only-like particles, the answer is negative. This is because alongside only, there also seem to be exclusives with a hardwired evaluative component whose ‘lower than the norm’ inference is non-cancellable. Examples are English merely (Beaver and Clark 2008; Coppock and Beaver 2014) and Hebrew stam (Greenberg and Orenstein 2016; Orenstein 2016), bilvad and kula. See also Winterstein et al. (2018) on the inherent evaluativity in the argumentative nature of only and of even crosslinguistically, Iatridou and Zeijlstra (2021) for discussion of similar evaluativity effects with in years/punctual until and Homer (2019) on all in copular sentences.

  22. This claim is important for Xiang’s derivation of the even-like reading of the Mandarin particle dou. Notice, though, that Xiang points out that the scale for even/dou may be based on other gradable properties and not necessarily on (un)likelihood, as suggested in Greenberg (2018).

  23. An interesting piece of data, pointed out by a reviewer, is the infelicity of only in (i):

    1. (i)

      Bill wrote 6 papers. Mary wrote 7. John wrote 3. And Sue (??only) wrote 3.

    We hypothesize that this infelicity is not because of the scalar presupposition of only, but instead because of the lack of also/too/as well in the second sentence, due to some Maximize Presupposition! effect. For example, B’s answer sounds better with too/as well:

    1. (ii)

      Bill wrote 6 papers. Mary wrote 7. John wrote 3. And Sue too only wrote 3/only wrote 3 as well.

    In addition, unlike the left/right asymmetry pointed out above, if we reverse the order in (i), as in (iiia), the result is still odd. But again, things are better when we add as well, as in (iiib):

    1. (iii)
      1. a.

        #Bill wrote 6 papers. Mary wrote 7. John only wrote 3. And Sue wrote 3.

      2. b.

        Bill wrote 6 papers. Mary wrote 7. John (only) wrote 3. And Sue too wrote 3/wrote 3 as well.

    We leave further examination of this data to future research.

  24. A reviewer wonders whether the hypothesized ‘at-issueness’ condition can be used by Xiang (2020) to explain the asymmetry pointed out above between only and even (as in (80)). We think the answer is negative. As already pointed out at the end of Sect. 5.3, Xiang’s proposal does not seem to rely on what is and what is not a member of C, or more generally on the status of coordinated sentences as [ir-]relevant alternatives. What affects the felicity of the particles in this proposal is their ‘evaluative inferences’ (see again (72)). In contrast, the condition hypothesized in this section concerns the prejacent of \(\mathit{only}_{1}\) vs. \(\mathit{even}_{1}\) as being [not-]-at-issue, and hence as being an [ir-]relevant alternative

  25. Though see Trinh (2019) on the challenges in characterizing ‘salience’ in this approach.

  26. A third possibility is to assume that in sentences like (82) and (83), we have double occurrences of covert exh (similarly to the double overt only cases discussed in Sect. 5 above). This, however, would not explain the lack of evaluativity effects of exh in (84). In addition, applying the hypothesis developed for double only cases to exh is risked by the claim, made in Bassi et al. (2021), that unlike only, the prejacent of exh is at-issue.

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Acknowledgement

For helpful comments on this and previous versions of the paper I am grateful to Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal, Itai Bassi, Brian Buccola, Gennaro Chierchia, Luka Crnič, Micky Daniels, Moshe Elyashiv Bar Lev, Mitcho Erlewine, Danny Fox, Nicole Gotzner, Mira Grubic, Andreas Heida, Roni Katzir, Manfred Krifka, Mingming Liu, Lena Miashkur, Dina Orenstein, Bastian Persohn, Aynat Rubinstein, Galit Sassoon, Stephanie Solt, Benjamin Spector, Carla Umbach, Grégoire Winterstein, Yimei Xiang, Hedde Zeijlstra, Linmin Zhang and Malte Zimmermann. Thanks also to the audiences of NELS49, CSSP 2019, of the linguistics colloquia at Potsdam University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and in particular to three NALS reviewers and the associated editors for constructive questions, comments, and suggestions regarding this paper. All remaining errors are, of course, mine. Research on this paper wassupported by ISF Grant 1655/16.

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  1. Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

    Yael Greenberg

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Greenberg, Y. On the scalar antonymy of only and even. Nat Lang Semantics 30, 415–452 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-022-09200-x

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