[Lingtyp] “at last” and “only now”

[Bastian Persohn]

 Dear Sergey,
At last is usually understood as a specific case of the concept ALREADY,
belonging to the domain
of phasal polarity (a term coined by van Baar 1997). Van der Auwera (1998)
terms this specific
type of expression an "artık inchoative", based on Turkish *artık*. You
might also want to
consider markers such as Spanish *ya* 'already' which is completely
insensitive to
whether the change of situation is in line with expectations, early, or
late.

Relevant typological studies include:

Baar, Theodorus M. van. 1991. APCC’s outside Europe. In Johan van der
Auwera (ed.), *Adverbs and particles of change and continuation
*(EUROTYP working
papers V.2).117–130. Strasbourg: European Science Foundation.

Auwera, Johan van der. 1998. Phasal Adverbials in the languages of Europe.
In Johan van der Auwera & Dónall P. O. Baoill (ed.), *Adverbial
constructions in the languages of Europe*. 25–145. Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter.

A good overview can be gathered from Kramer's (2017) position paper:
Kramer, Raija. 2017. Position paper on Phasal Polarity expressions*.*
Hamburg: University of Hamburg.
https://www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/afrika/php2018/medien/position-paper-on-php.pdf

The following might also be worth checking out:

Veselinova, Ljuba, Leif Asplund & Jozina Vander Klok. Forthcoming. Phasal
polarity in Malayo-Polynesian languages of South East Asia. In Alexander
Adelaar & Antoinette Schapper (eds.), *The Oxford Guide to the
Malayo-Polynesian languages of South East Asia*. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.


Then there is also the following book, which, in fact, was published today
and includes several chapters that discuss relevant markers:

Kramer, Raija (ed.). 2021. *The expression of phasal polarity in African
languages*. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hope this helps,

Bastian.

Am Di., 23. Feb. 2021 um 19:20 Uhr schrieb Sergey Loesov <
sergeloesov at gmail.com>:

> Dear colleagues,
>
>  Are you aware of cross-language or *einzelsprachlich* studies of the
> semantics/pragmatics of particles like “*at last*” “*only now*”, and
> similar. I.e., ‘particles’ that combine phasal and focus semantics.
>
>  Best wishes,
>
>  Sergey
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