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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 11: Selected papers from the 44th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), London, Ontario
Edited by Silvia Perpiñán, David Heap, Itziri Moreno-Villamar and Adriana Soto-Corominas
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 11] 2017
► pp. 53–75

Chapter 3
How French sheds new light on scalar particles

| Harvard University

This paper examines the behavior of the French scalar focus-sensitive particles même, quand même, ne serait-ce que, and seulement as compared to English even and only. I first show that French même displays a more restricted distribution than even; this behavior and that of its antonym quand même argue for the scope theory against the ambiguity theory of even. Secondly, I demonstrate that the behavior of ne serait-ce que and seulement reveal the existence of an intrinsic link between even-like particles and only-like particles. To capture this observation, and more generally the organic relation between scalar particles, I propose a new, parsimonious, theory that builds scalarity, additivity, and exclusivity of scalar particles into a conjunctive or disjunctive meaning.

Keywords: scalarity, focus, even , only , French
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.How même and quand même argue in favor of the scope theory
    • 2.1Background: The two theories of even and their issues
    • 2.2 French même
    • 2.3 French quand même
  • 3.How French scalar particles reveal an intrinsic link between even and only
    • 3.1 Ne serait-ce que
    • 3.2 Seulement
    • 3.3Crosslinguistic link between even and only
  • 4.A new theory of scalar particles
    • 4.1 French seulement
    • 4.2 French même, quand même, ne serait-ce que
    • 4.3Crosslinguistic consequences
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 October 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.11.03cha
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Greenberg, Yael
2022. On the scalar antonymy of only and even. Natural Language Semantics 30:4 ► pp. 415 ff. DOI logo

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