Abstract 2 - How French sheds new light on scalar particles

How French sheds new light on scalar particles (Isabelle Charnavel, Harvard University)
Goal – Theories of the distribution and interpretation of scalar particles like even have not
reached any consensus yet as all face problems. Limiting ourselves to the most influential ones,
the ambiguity theories of even (a.o. Rooth 1985, Rullmann 1997, Herburger 2000, Schwarz
2005, Giannakidou 2007) or only (scalar vs. non-scalar) are uneconomical, the scope theories of
even (a.o. Horn 1971, Karttunen and Peters 1979, Wilkinson 1996, Lahiri 1998, Guerzoni 2003)
have to postulate island violating scope mechanisms, and analyses of German auch nur ‘also
only’ (Guerzoni 2003) or Japanese dake demo ‘even only’ (Nakanishi 2006) propose
presupposition/assertion swapping under negation.
Based on some novel, detailed empirical observations on French that shed new light on how
scalar particles partition their meaning domain, a new, parsimonious, theory of scalar particles is
proposed (no accidental homonymy, no island violating scope mechanism, no
assertion/presupposition swapping) deriving (in French) the even/only duality and seems
extendable to English and other languages.
New empirical observations - Here are some revealing properties of French scalar particles:
1- Besides its usual meaning, seulement (‘only’) has another possible meaning in negative
environments similar to that of ‘weak’ even (1-3). Moreover, another scalar expression close in
meaning to only, namely ne serait-ce que ‘lit. were it only’, is also the equivalent of weak even
(7-9). This suggests a systematic relation between even and only (cf. English if only ≈ even,
Straits Salish ?al ‘only/even’, Italian anche solo, German auch nur, Slovak I len ‘also only’,
Dutch zelfs maar, Japanese dake-demo ‘even only’, Spanish tan solo ‘so only’, Guerzoni 2003).
(1) La vie est trop courte pour qu’on puisse s’embêter pendant seulement une heure.
‘Life is too short to get bored even for one hour.’
(Courteline)
(2) Un peu plus, tu allais être venu à Paris sans seulement avoir vu notre petit !
‘You almost came to Paris without even seeing our child!’
(Martin du Gard)
(3) Je crois bien que je ne te donnerai plus rien. Pas seulement ça!
(Balzac)
‘I think I will not give you anything any more. Not even that!’
2- Même exhibits a more restricted distribution than even: like ‘hard’ even, it expresses low
likelihood in positive contexts, but corresponds to weak even only in antiadditive contexts; in the
other environments (other downward entailing (DE) and modal ones) licensing weak even (cf.
Crnič 2011), ne serait-ce que is used instead of même. Since these contexts are precisely those
where even is not always additive (Cf. Crnič 2011) and island violations can occur under the
scope theory of even, this suggests that même is a well-behaved Karttunen and Peters (1979)’s
even, i.e. additive and scoping over negation without violating islands.
(4) Paul a même fait tous les devoirs. ‘Paul even did all the homeworks.’
(5) Paul n’a même pas fait un devoir. ‘Paul didn’t even do one homework.’
(6) Si tu fais même tous les devoirs, tu rateras. ‘If you do even all homeworks, you’ll fail.’
(7) Si tu fais (??même/ne serait-ce qu’)un devoir, tu réussiras. ‘If you do (even) one homework,
you’ll pass.’
(8) Tout étudiant qui a lu (??même/ne serait-ce qu’) un article réussira l’examen.
‘Every student who read (even) one paper will pass the exam.’
(9) Montre-moi (??même/ne serait-ce qu’) un parti qui se soucie des gens.
‘Show me (even) one party that cares for the people.’
3- Même has an antonym quand même linked with the other end of the scale in every context.
(10) Paul a (quand même/#même) fait un devoir. ‘At least, Paul did one homework.’
(11) Luc n’a (quand même/#même) pas fait tous les devoirs. ‘Still, L didn’t do all the homeworks.’
1 End of Scale\Context
Top e.g. ‘do all homeworks’
Positive
même
Bottom
e.g. ‘do one homework’
seulement
quand même
Antiadditive
quand même
même
seulement
ne serait-ce que
Other DE
même
seulement
ne serait-ce que
quand même
Modal
même
ne serait-ce que
quand même
Proposal –A scalar particle denotes a conjunction or disjunction of propositions as follows:
(p: prejacent, i.e. proposition that the scalar particle scopes over;
q: alternatives (induced by focus associates of scalar particles as standardly assumed))
Seulement
Ne serait-ce que
Quand même
Même
Meaning
p ∧ ¬q
p∨q
p ∧ ¬q
p∧q
Position on the scale
q>p
q>p
q>p
q<p
Scope with negation
neg > seulement
neg > ne serait-ce que
quand même > neg
même > neg
1- This denotation of seulement correctly derives two meanings under negation:
(12) a. Lise a seulement un enfant.
‘Lise only has 1 child.’
b. Lise n’a pas seulement un enfant.
‘Lise does not only/even have 1 child.’
(12)a: seulement(p) = p ∧ ¬q (q > p): Lise has one child and she does not have more.
(12)b: neg(seulement(p))= ¬(p ∧ ¬q) = ¬p ∨ q: Lise does not have one child (meaning even, cf.
1-3), or Lise has more than one child (meaning only).
2- It is also correctly predicted that même and ne serait-ce que both get the meaning ‘even’ of
seulement under negation despite different meanings in positive contexts.
(13) a. Lise veut ne serait-ce qu’un enfant.
‘Lise wants at least 1 child.’
b. Lise a même cinq enfants.
‘Lise has even 5 children.’
(14) a. Lise n’a pas ne serait-ce qu’un enfant.
‘Lise does not even have 1 child.’
b. Lise n’a même pas un enfant.
‘Lise does not even have 1 child.’
(13)a: ne serait-ce que (p)= p ∨ q (q > p): Lise wants one child or more.
(13)b: même (p) = p ∧ q (q < p): Lise has five children and she has fewer.
(14)a: neg(ne serait-ce que(p)) = ¬(p ∨ q)= ¬p ∧ ¬q: Lise does not have one child and she does
not have more (she does not have any).
(14)b: même (negp) = ¬p ∧ ¬q: Lise does not have one child and she does not have more.
3- Finally, it captures the antonymy of même and quand même (cf. 15-16 vs. 13b-14b).
(15) Lise a quand même un enfant.
‘At least, Lise has 1 child.’
(16) Lise n’a quand même pas cinq enfants.
‘Still, Lise does not have 5 children.’
(15)=(12)a; (16): quand même(negp)=¬p∧¬¬q: Lise doesn’t have 5 children and she has fewer.
In sum, building additivity, exclusivity and scalarity into a conjunctive or disjunctive meaning of
scalar particles and determining their scope with respect to the negation allow us to
parsimoniously derive the different meanings and distributions of French scalar particles.
Crosslinguistic consequences – This theory predicts the existence of various scalar particles
depending on the parameters in the above table (∧/∨, ¬, </>, </> neg). Based on Tomaszewicz
(2012), p∧¬q (q<p) seems for instance to indeed exist (slavic aż/čak). It would be worth further
investigating such predictions. As for English, even corresponding to both French même and ne
serait-ce que is arguably underspecified between p∧q and p∨q, and the stronger meaning in the
context obtains. Similarly if only gets only one meaning under negation, it can be because it is
underspecified between p∧¬q and p∨¬q.
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