Chapter 3
How French sheds new light on scalar particles
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.
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
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Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Greenberg, Yael
2022.
On the scalar antonymy of only and even.
Natural Language Semantics 30:4
► pp. 415 ff.
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