[Lingtyp] Corrective 'but (rather)'

[Wiemer, Bjoern]

Hello everybody,
the Polish example is very much to the point (and entirely idiomatic, although my Polish is also L2). But I'm wondering how we (as linguists) want to distinguish "holistic"

>It's not green only yellow. _
> 
> from "non-holistic"
> 
> _It's not green. Only yellow._
>

In German (my L1) you can say

(1)	Ich bin kein Student, nur Professor. [with a falling intonation on "Student" and a rising one on "nur"]

It seems to be worse with the translation of the English example with the adjective
(2)	Es ist nicht grün, nur gelb.

I'm unaware of any empirical (corpus-based etc.) investigation for German (it should include also the question whether "nur" differs from "bloß" in this regard; both are translational equivalents of "only, but"). However, even with a corpus at hand, how would we solve the question of unambiguously stating whether a construction is coordinative ("holistic") or not?

Best,
Björn.




-----Original Message-----
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> On Behalf Of Cat Butz via Lingtyp
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2026 1:41 PM
To: Mira Ariel <mariel at tauex.tau.ac.il>
Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: [Lingtyp] Corrective 'but (rather)'

Hi Mira,

Polish:

Nie jestem studentką, tylko profesorką.
Not I'm student only professor
"I'm not a student, but a professor."

Disclaimer: I speak Polish as an L2, started to learn as an adult.

Warmest,
---
Cat Butz (she)
HHU Düsseldorf
General Linguistics


Am 09/06/2026 14:21, schrieb Mira Ariel via Lingtyp:
> Dear linguists,
> 
> I'm interested in cases where a restricting focus adverbial such as 
> 'only'/'just' can mark the rectification of X (e.g., _green_)_ _to Y 
> (e.g., _yellow)_, as in:
> 
> _It's not green but yellow._
> 
> _ _
> 
> Uttering [_Not_ X _but_/_sondern_ Y], the speaker first rejects some 
> option X (hence the obligatory negation in the first conjunct), in 
> order to then replace X by a different alternative Y. Note that I'm 
> looking for a single holistic construction:
> 
> _It's not green only yellow. _
> 
> and not:
> 
> _It's not green. Only yellow._
> 
> Also, the rectifying phrase does not have to be a lower scalar value, 
> as in:
> 
> _She's not a judge only a lawyer_.
> 
> It should also be acceptable to say:
> 
> _She's not a lawyer only a judge_.
> 
> It's enough for me if the 'but (rather') expression is etymologically 
> related to an 'only' expression (this is the case for Hebrew _ela_).
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mira Ariel
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