Focus, Evaluativity, and Antonymy - A Study in the Semantics of Only and its Interaction with Gradable Antonyms

Acknowledgements

Contents

1 Introduction

1.1 Overview

1.2 Three Illustrations of Empirical Claim

1.2.1 First Illustration: Betting Scenarios

1.2.2 Second Illustration: In Fact, and Downward Entailing Contexts

1.2.3 Third Illustration: Only as a Weakener

1.3 Consequences

1.4 Theoretical Implications

1.5 Book Overview

2 Only and Its Inferences

2.1 Chapter Preview

2.2 The Semantics of Only

2.2.1 The Exclusive Inference of Only

2.2.1.1 Scalar Only

2.2.1.2 Scalarity and Only's Disjunctive Presupposition

2.2.2 Interim Summary

2.2.3 Only and Its Scalar Presupposition

2.2.4 Only and the Ban Against Its Vacuous Use

2.2.5 The Scalar Presupposition as the Ban Against VacuousUse

2.3 Chapter Summary

3 The Positive Morpheme and Its Interaction with Only

3.1 Chapter Preview

3.2 Background: Many and Few as Gradable Adjectives

3.3 pos and the Evaluativity of Many and Few

3.3.1 N as a Modal in the Semantics of pos

3.4 Interim Summary

3.5 The Interaction of pos and Only: Answering the Missing Readings Question

3.6 Theory 1 of the Only-pos Interaction

3.6.1 Prediction: Negation

3.6.2 Prediction: Modals and Their Monotonicity

3.6.3 Section Summary

3.7 Theory 2 of the Only-pos Interaction

3.8 Chapter Summary

3.9 The Antonym-Pair Generalization

4 The Proposal

4.1 Chapter Preview

4.2 The Scoping Account: Decomposing Modified Numerals

4.3 The Closure Account

4.3.1 Van Benthem's Problem

4.3.2 Bypassing van Benthem's Problem by Constraining Alternatives

4.3.3 Bypassing van Benthem's Problem by Blind Exclusion

4.4 Summary

4.4.1 The Existence Inference and the Status of Only'sPrejacent

4.4.2 A Remark on the Distribution of Existentially-ClosedParses

4.5 Comparison with Other Accounts

4.5.1 POS as Comparative: Density?

4.5.2 BonomiCasalegno1993

4.5.3 Beck2012

4.6 Extension to Rarely

4.7 Chapter Summary

Appendix: Constraint on Formal Alternatives

5 Only if, Its Interaction with pos, and Its Scalar Presupposition

5.1 Chapter Preview

5.2 Only if as Only and a Conditional Prejacent

5.3 Only if and pos

5.4 Only if and Only's Scalar Presupposition

5.5 Chapter Summary

6 Conclusions and Extensions

6.1 Book Summary

6.2 Comparatives

6.2.1 Antonymy and the -er Morpheme

6.2.2 Subsethood in Measure-Phrase Comparatives

6.2.3 Innocent Exclusion and Density

6.2.4 LessP

6.2.5 Summary

6.3 At Least and At Most?

6.3.1 Alternativehood of Disjuncts and Association with Only

6.4 Another Case: Recently

Appendix

References

Index