![]()
1
Introduction
1.1
SCOPE AND GOALS OF THE PRESENT STUDY
The aim of the present study is to present a detailed analysis of the syntax, meaning and use of words like even, also, only, too in English, German and several other languages.1 Given that there is only a very limited inventory of such expressions in English or any other language and that their contribution to the meaning of a sentence does not seem to be all that significant, it may appear at first sight hardly justified to devote a whole book to the analysis of these expressions. Moreover, such a book might seem to be of mere philological interest at best. The fact, however, that these expressions have played an important role in discussions of both language philosophers and linguists in the last twenty years or so and that many articles have been written on this subject belies this view. What is it, then, that makes these expressions so interesting?
There are, essentially, two general properties which have aroused great interest in focus particles and which motivated me to write this book, either of which can be illustrated by a list of more specific points:
| (a) | Focus particles play an important role in the development and formal make-up of a variety of constructions and are related to various semantic domains. There are, in other words, various synchronic and diachronic connections between focus particles and other central semantic processes. |
| (b) | Focus particles present a challenge to current syntactic and semantic theories. The following more specific points illustrate and further substantiate these two claims: |
| (a1) | There is an interesting tie-up between additive focus particles and coordination in many languages. Coordinating conjunctions like E. and and additive particles like E. also, too often correspond to the same lexical item in other languages. Latin and Malayalam (Dravidian) exhibit the relevant connection quite clearly: Latin et and Malayalam -um are both used to coordinate phrases and sentences, but may also be used in the sense of E. ‘also, too, even’. |
| (a2) | Additive particles frequently combine with interrogative quantifiers (‘interrogative pronouns’) to form so-called ‘indefinite pronouns’ (‘free-choice quantifiers’) like E. whoever. G. wer auch immer ‘who-also-always’, Dutch wie ook or Jap. daremo ‘who-also’ and Seneca w: tohkwah ‘when-also’ (‘whenever’) are cases in point (cf. Coyaud and Aït Hamou, 1976). |
| (a3) | Additive particles like E. also, even frequently show up as components of concessive connectives. Even though, even so in English, F. quand même and G. obschon, ob-gleich, wenn …auch illustrate this connection (cf. König, 1988) |
| (a4) | Both only and even, as well as their counterparts in other languages, mark two interesting types of conditionals. When only is prefixed to a conditional marker, the resultant sentence expresses a necessary condition: |
| (1) | a. | If p, then q. |
| | b. | Only if p, q. |
| | The tie-up between only and the distinction ‘sufficient vs. necessary condition’ is, however, much more general than this. The addition of only may also have the effect in question in sentences not overtly marked as expressing conditions. Compare the following two examples where the first one could be analysed as expressing a sufficient condition and the second as expressing a necessary one: |
| (2) | a. | A BA is sufficient for this job. |
| | b. | Only a BA is sufficient for this job. |
| | Interestingly enough, this relationship also works the other way round: Some sentences express a necessary condition without only, but a sufficient one when only is inserted: |
| (3) | a. | A BA is required for this job. (necessary condition) |
| | b. | Only a BA is required for this job. (sufficient condition) |
| (a5) | Conditional antecedents in which the restrictive particle only follows the conditional marker and is part of the antecedent express wishes and function as a specific utterance type in a wide variety of languages: |
| (4) | a. | If only he hasn’t told him. |
| | b. | (G.) Wenn er es ihm nur nicht gesagt hat. |
| | In some analyses, the conditional connective and the particle are regarded as markers of an ‘optative’ mood. |
| (a6) | There is an interesting tie-up between restrictive particles and adversative conjunctions in many languages. E. but and Dutch maar, for example, are used both as restrictive focus particles and as adversative conjunctions: |
| (5) | a. | He is but a child. |
| | b. | He wanted to do it, but he didn’t find the time. |
| (a7) | There is an interesting relationship between emphatic reflexives or emphatic assertions of identity and additive scalar particles like E. even. The following German examples illustrate this affinity (cf. Edmondson and Plank, 1978; Plank, 1979b): |
| (6) | a. | Selbst der Präsident kam. |
| | | ‘Even the President came.’ |
| | b. | Der Präsident kam selbst. |
| | | ‘The President came himself.’ |
| (a8) | Finally, focus particles interact with the focused part of the sentence they occur in, a fact which is responsible for the label used in this and various other studies for this subclass of adverbs. The contributions made by even to the meaning of the following sentences clearly differ, as a result of the interaction of the particle with different foci: |
| (7) | a. | John even insúlted Mary, |
| | b. | John even insulted Máry. |
| | Clearly, then, focus particles are by no means a marginal phenomenon in the structure of a language. That they present an interesting challenge to current syntactic and semantic theories is shown by the following points: |
| (b1) | In spite of the essentially pragmatic nature of the meaning of focus particles, there are close connections with and parallels to truth-conditional aspects of meaning. In many respects, focus particles behave like generalised quantifiers and the analysis of their meaning crucially involves the notion of scope. Consider the following two pairs of examples as illustration of this quantifier-like behaviour. When such particles are added to a sentence containing a pronoun such as (8)a., these pronouns |
| | |
| | lose their anaphoric character and function as variables. And a reversal in the linear order of focus particles frequently correlates with a change of meaning (cf. (9)): |
| (8) | a. | Fred regrets that he lost. |
| | b. | Only Fred regrets that he lost. |
| (9) | a. | Even Fred read only Syntactic Structures. |
| | b. | Only Syntactic Structures was even read by Fred. |
| (b2) | Focus particles also present a challenge to truth-conditional theories of meaning in so far as their introduction into some sentences does not seem to affect the truth conditions in any way (cf. (10)), whereas in others the presence of a focus particle makes a clear difference (cf. (11)): |
| (10) | a. | Fred came to the party. |
| | b. | Even Fred came to the party. |
| (11) | a. | I’m distressed because
I can’t remember my own phone number. |
| | b. | I’m distressed because
I can’t even remember
my own phone number. |
| | In (11)a. the distress has a single cause, whereas in (11)b. it has a multiple cause, the forgetting of a whole lot of important information.2 |
| (b3) | Focus particles belong to the so-called ‘minor’, ‘functional’ or ‘non-lexical’ categories whose integration into a syntactic description presents great problems for current syntactic frameworks (cf. Chapter 2). |
| (b4) | A number of authors (e.g. Reinhart, 1983) have noted that even and only interact intimately with the Binding Conditions formulated in Chomsky (1981). The following two examples show that both himself and him can be coreferential in a simplex sentence with focus particles: |
| (12) | a. | Only Felix1 voted for himself1 |
| | b. | Only Felix1 voted for |
| The fact that both reflexives and pronouns can be coreferential in such sentences seems to be related to the fact that they mean something different in such sentences. Why do particles permit such violations of Chomsky’s condition B: ‘pronouns must be free in their minimal category’? |
| (b5) | Focus particles and related expressions (cf. Chapter 8) are extremely context-dependent, vague and subjective in their |
| |
| | meaning and it is all too easy to mistake a specific aspect of the context for the meaning of the particle itself. To capture this context-dependence, vagueness and subjectivity poses serious problems for any semantic theory. |
| (b6) | Despite clear parallels in the lexical distinctions drawn by many languages, focus particles and related expressions are difficult to translate from one language into another. Moreover, native speakers have no clear intuitions about or awareness of the relevant aspects of meaning. |
The present book is both a descriptive and a theoretical study. Even though its orientation will be to a large extent a descriptive one, all of the problems and points listed above will be addressed and specific attention will be given to the theoretical problems raised by particles. In contrast to earlier contributions to the analysis of focus particles, the present study is a comparative one and combines the goal of giving an in-depth analysis of a certain area of grammatical and lexical structure in English and German with the one of making some cross-linguistic observations and generalisations. Starting from a detailed comparison between English and German, I will include data from a wide variety of languages into my analysis. Such a cross-linguistic perspective will help us, I think, to see the general properties of focus particles more clearly and to separate general from language-specific facts. It may, furthermore, help us to identify some interesting issues, problems and solutions that go unnoticed if an investigation is confined to a single language.
The main emphasis of this study will rest on the meaning of particles. Thus, only one chapter of the book will deal with pr...
