Syntax random

[zompist]

Reviving this thread to mention an interesting observation about English quantifiers (discovered in the process of conlanging):

1. We only didn’t see the Louvre ⇒ It was only the Louvre that we didn’t see

Under focalisation (I think this particular construction is clefting?), the quantifier seems to ‘jump’ from modifying the whole VP, to modifying the object NP alone. From a logical perspective, the latter would seem to be more coherent — there was a single thing we didn’t see, and that single thing was the Louvre. But in the first sentence (before the arrow), instead of staying in that position, the quantifier seems to move back to before the whole VP.

Other way around: what's happening in We only didn’t see the Louvre is Quantifier Hopping.

We are planning to see only the Louvre.
> We are planning to only see the Louvre.
> We are only planning to see the Louvre.

The trick is to note the semantics: what's limited is what we're seeing, i.e. the Louvre. So the logical place for "only" is also its original location.

So your sentence starts as "We didn't see only the Louvre", which is clefted to "It was only the Louvre that we didn't see."

Quantifier Hopping create ambiguities the more it's applied, which can be teased out by intonation or by careful additions. E.g. "We're only planning to see the Louvre, we may never get there" makes it clear that "only" is being applied to "planning."

[bradrn]

Other way around: what's happening in We only didn’t see the Louvre is Quantifier Hopping.

We are planning to see only the Louvre.
> We are planning to only see the Louvre.
> We are only planning to see the Louvre.

The trick is to note the semantics: what's limited is what we're seeing, i.e. the Louvre. So the logical place for "only" is also its original location.

So your sentence starts as "We didn't see only the Louvre", which is clefted to "It was only the Louvre that we didn't see."

Um, this was precisely what I said, wasn’t it? (It was certainly what I intended to say… writing at 3am isn’t always the best idea if you want to write clearly!)

The curious thing here is its precise application, when you have negation in the mix. If you apply Quantifier Hopping twice, you move it all the way back to the beginning of the VP, and it has the intended meaning. But if you only apply it once, the meaning flips to something which is very nearly the opposite:

We didn’t see only the Louvre.
⇒ We didn’t only see the Louvre. (flipped meaning: we saw the Louvre and some other things)
⇒ We only didn’t see the Louvre. (original meaning: we didn’t see the Louvre, but we saw everything else)

It makes sense that moving ‘only’ past ‘not’ should invert things, but why does moving it past ‘see’ change the situation?

Another curiosity, which I didn’t mention in the last post because I’m less sure about it, is that the first sentence here is actually ambiguous for me:

1. Going from the placement of ‘only’, it can mean what you mention: ‘the Louvre was the only thing we didn’t see’. But for me this requires special intonation (we didn’t see | őnlý the Lòuvre), and feels quite strained.
2. It much more readily means the same as the single-Quantifier-Hopped sentence: ‘only seeing the Louvre was what didn’t happen, we saw other things too’.

Interpretation (2) here makes sense of the data from Quantifier Hopping, because it means that the meaning only changes when it hops past ‘not’, as expected. But then, going back to my original focalised sentence:

It was only the Louvre that we didn’t see.

That would seem to rely on interpretation (1). On reflection, the ambiguity is probably key to making this work, but I’m not sure how to analyse the situation…

[zompist]

Other way around: what's happening in We only didn’t see the Louvre is Quantifier Hopping.

We are planning to see only the Louvre.
> We are planning to only see the Louvre.
> We are only planning to see the Louvre.

The trick is to note the semantics: what's limited is what we're seeing, i.e. the Louvre. So the logical place for "only" is also its original location.

So your sentence starts as "We didn't see only the Louvre", which is clefted to "It was only the Louvre that we didn't see."

Um, this was precisely what I said, wasn’t it? (It was certainly what I intended to say… writing at 3am isn’t always the best idea if you want to write clearly!)

Well, no, what you said was that the base sentence was "We only didn’t see the Louvre", and you had Quantifier Hopping going the wrong way.

The curious thing here is its precise application, when you have negation in the mix. If you apply Quantifier Hopping twice, you move it all the way back to the beginning of the VP, and it has the intended meaning. But if you only apply it once, the meaning flips to something which is very nearly the opposite:

We didn’t see only the Louvre.
⇒ We didn’t only see the Louvre. (flipped meaning: we saw the Louvre and some other things)
⇒ We only didn’t see the Louvre. (original meaning: we didn’t see the Louvre, but we saw everything else)

To me the first and second of these have same meaning... that is, not applies to only.

I think there are ambiguities here because English has both Quantifier Hopping and Neg Hopping. So it's not too clear what "only" and "not" apply to!

[bradrn]

The curious thing here is its precise application, when you have negation in the mix. If you apply Quantifier Hopping twice, you move it all the way back to the beginning of the VP, and it has the intended meaning. But if you only apply it once, the meaning flips to something which is very nearly the opposite:

We didn’t see only the Louvre.
⇒ We didn’t only see the Louvre. (flipped meaning: we saw the Louvre and some other things)
⇒ We only didn’t see the Louvre. (original meaning: we didn’t see the Louvre, but we saw everything else)

To me the first and second of these have same meaning... that is, not applies to only.

This is what I find interesting. As you said, Quantifier Hopping suggests that this is what’s happening:

We didn’t see [only the Louvre]. ⇒ We only didn’t see the Louvre.

Yet, the first sentence exists in surface structure with a completely different meaning! For you, that meaning is unambiguously different; for me it’s ambiguous, and can be the same under highly marked circumstances. But, apparently, the least marked meaning of the first sentence is never the same as that of second sentence.

[zompist]

We didn’t see [only the Louvre]. ⇒ We only didn’t see the Louvre.

Yet, the first sentence exists in surface structure with a completely different meaning! For you, that meaning is unambiguously different; for me it’s ambiguous, and can be the same under highly marked circumstances. But, apparently, the least marked meaning of the first sentence is never the same as that of second sentence.

FWIW, I'd mark We only didn’t see the Louvre with a question mark. That's curious since I have no problem with the positive counterpart. I think the only way I can think of saying it is an an exclamatory regret: "We made a huge mistake in Paris! What was it— oh nothing much, we only didn't see the Louvre!"

[Travis B.]

We didn’t see [only the Louvre]. ⇒ We only didn’t see the Louvre.

Yet, the first sentence exists in surface structure with a completely different meaning! For you, that meaning is unambiguously different; for me it’s ambiguous, and can be the same under highly marked circumstances. But, apparently, the least marked meaning of the first sentence is never the same as that of second sentence.

FWIW, I'd mark We only didn’t see the Louvre with a question mark. That's curious since I have no problem with the positive counterpart. I think the only way I can think of saying it is an an exclamatory regret: "We made a huge mistake in Paris! What was it— oh nothing much, we only didn't see the Louvre!"

I second you on that ─ I would put a question mark on ?We only didn't see the Louvre.

[bradrn]

We didn’t see [only the Louvre]. ⇒ We only didn’t see the Louvre.

Yet, the first sentence exists in surface structure with a completely different meaning! For you, that meaning is unambiguously different; for me it’s ambiguous, and can be the same under highly marked circumstances. But, apparently, the least marked meaning of the first sentence is never the same as that of second sentence.

FWIW, I'd mark We only didn’t see the Louvre with a question mark. That's curious since I have no problem with the positive counterpart. I think the only way I can think of saying it is an an exclamatory regret: "We made a huge mistake in Paris! What was it— oh nothing much, we only didn't see the Louvre!"

This is now making me question myself. A few moments ago, I thought this sentence was perfectly acceptable to me. But then I tried thinking up a sample dialog, and found these sentences coming more naturally to me instead:

We saw everything except the Louvre.
The only thing we didn’t see was the Louvre.

So… yeah, maybe you’re right, and I’m overthinking these questionable edge cases. (It is something I tend to do when thinking about syntax.) Still, I can’t shake the feeling there’s some circumstance where I’d use the original sentence.

[zompist]

We saw everything except the Louvre.
The only thing we didn’t see was the Louvre.

I agree that these sound good.

So… yeah, maybe you’re right, and I’m overthinking these questionable edge cases. (It is something I tend to do when thinking about syntax.)

Oh, you're not alone. Any sentence, or word, can start to sound dubious if you stare at it too long.

(That's one reason some linguists think we should only do corpus linguistics. But that has its own problems.)

[bradrn]

So… yeah, maybe you’re right, and I’m overthinking these questionable edge cases. (It is something I tend to do when thinking about syntax.)

Oh, you're not alone. Any sentence, or word, can start to sound dubious if you stare at it too long.

Actually, what I have is the opposite problem. Every sentence starts to feel acceptable if I think about it too long!

[Man in Space]

“We only didn’t see the Louvre” needs no question mark from me—it’s perfectly licit. My takeaway would be that there was some list or set of things you visited on your trip or at least wanted to see, the Louvre being the only one you didn’t get to. (“We saw the Musée d’Orsay, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the white McDonald’s on the Champs-Elysées…we got to most everything, we only didn’t see the Louvre.”)

[bradrn]

“We only didn’t see the Louvre” needs no question mark from me—it’s perfectly licit. My takeaway would be that there was some list or set of things you visited on your trip or at least wanted to see, the Louvre being the only one you didn’t get to. (“We saw the Musée d’Orsay, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the white McDonald’s on the Champs-Elysées…we got to most everything, we only didn’t see the Louvre.”)

OK, thank you for confirming that I’m not going totally insane!

[bradrn]

Thinking about this a bit further, I think I can summarise the situation:

1. We only didn’t see the Louvre means (for speakers who consider it valid) that we didn’t see the Louvre, but we did see the other sights.
2. We didn’t only see the Louvre means that we did see the Louvre, but we also saw some other sights.
3. We didn’t see only the Louvre is debatable, but means essentially the same as (2).
4. It was only the Louvre that we didn’t see has a similar structure to (3), but actually means the same as (1).

So my confusion remains: why do (3) and (4) get such different meanings? (4) implies that we didn’t see the Louvre, (3) implies that we did see it. But, at the surface level, (4) looks like a simple cleft of (3).

[Darren]

Here's my two cents:

1. "We only didn’t see the Louvre" → we didn't see the Louvre, but we did all the other things expected of tourists going to France
2. "We didn’t only see the Louvre" → we saw the Louvre, and did some other things
3. "We didn’t see only the Louvre" → we saw the Louvre, and saw some other things
4. "It was only the Louvre that we didn’t see" → we didn't see the Louvre, but we saw everything else

Actually thinking about it, (2) has two meanings:

2a. "We didn't only see the Lóuvre" → we saw the Louvre, and did some other things
2b. "We didn't only sée the Louvre" → we didn't just see the Louvre, but we did other things to it too


Man that's doing my head in.

Here's my theory: "not only" is a lexicalised construction distinct from a negated verb and "only". In (3) it's been split by "see" by some syntactic fuckery but retained its lexicalised sense. You can force the (4)-like reading if you whack a big pause in there:

3b. "We didn't see ... [suspenseful pause] only the Louvre" (expecting a response of "What the hell? That's like top two things to see when you're in Paris!")

That's the meaning that (3) should by rights take, and it's the only meaning that (4) generates.


Does that make any sense? English adverbs are munted.

[bradrn]

You can force the (4)-like reading if you whack a big pause in there:

3b. "We didn't see ... [suspenseful pause] only the Louvre" (expecting a response of "What the hell? That's like top two things to see when you're in Paris!")

That's the meaning that (3) should by rights take, and it's the only meaning that (4) generates.

Interesting… so you agree with my earlier assessment of this sentence as ambiguous, if you add a pause and get the intonation right:

Going from the placement of ‘only’, it can mean what you mention: ‘the Louvre was the only thing we didn’t see’. But for me this requires special intonation (we didn’t see | őnlý the Lòuvre), and feels quite strained.

Maybe it’s an Australian English thing, then. Either way, zompist seems to say this is impossible for him. (Unless I’ve gotten myself confused yet again?)

[Darren]

I'm trying to reformulate this with a verb that doesn't require auxiliary negation:

1′. "We only aren't anaesthetists" → we're everything but anaesthetists
2~3′. "We aren't only anaesthetists" → we're anaesthetists and other things too
4′. ?"It's only anaesthetists which we aren't" → same as 1 (if taken to mean anything)

I think (4′) isn't a clefting of (2~3′) because the NP is [[not only] anaesthetists]], rather than just [[only [anaesthetists]] . You'd cleft it as

5′. ??????"It's not only anaesthetists which we are"

Which suggests

5. "It was not only the Louvre that we saw" → expected meaning

As long as "only" follows "not", a sentence gets parsed along the lines of (2). I think.

(Unless I’ve gotten myself confused yet again?)

You wouldn't be the only one. Or rather, you only wouldn't be the one. Or perhaps it's only you that wouldn't be the one.

[zompist]

Going from the placement of ‘only’, it can mean what you mention: ‘the Louvre was the only thing we didn’t see’. But for me this requires special intonation (we didn’t see | őnlý the Lòuvre), and feels quite strained.

Maybe it’s an Australian English thing, then. Either way, zompist seems to say this is impossible for him. (Unless I’ve gotten myself confused yet again?)

It got unclear which sentence was being discussed, so I can't say.

Stress and intonation are under-studied, to my knowledge. A lot of sentences behave differently, or become acceptable, when there is strong stress on one word. That "We only didn't see the Louvre" works that way for me.

Just for fun I checked three syntax books.... the two Chomskyans (Adger and Carnie) don't even have "stress" in the index; McCawley refers to it several times but doesn't have a full discussion, and (unusually for him) doesn't even propose what it looks like in deep structure.