[Lingtyp] Corrective 'but (rather)'

[Paolo Ramat]

As trivial as it may  sound,  the etymology of *but  < *ME* bute < OE be
u:tan  ( s*orry: no grapheme for long u in my mail !) i.e. "by out,
outside"  can easily explain the evolution toward the adversative meaning.
(Cp. OSax.*biutan, **butan, *Du.* buiten*)
Best regards
Paolo

Prof. Dr.Dr.h.c. Paolo Ramat
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
'Academia Europaea'
'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member
Università di Pavia (retired)
Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)

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Il giorno mer 10 giu 2026 alle ore 15:58 Maxim Stepanyants via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> ha scritto:

> Esteemed colleagues,
>
> I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the use of markers
> that can mean 'only' for adversative coordination has been addressed in the
> specialised literature, albeit rather rarely. The distinction between
> "simple" (or concessive) adversativity and the substitutive function has
> not been so commonplace, though.
>
> Among the more recent topologically-oriented contributions, are the papers
> by Prof. Winterstein (
> http://gregoire.winterstein.free.fr/docs/Pres/WintersteinG-AdversativeRestriction-HO.pdf)
> and by Stepanyants (https://doi.org/10.31857/S160578800024639-8). Still,
> I am certain that the issue merits further investigation. I also believe it
> is noteworthy that the bridging context for 'only' > 'but rather' is
> presumably the meaning 'except' (this is partly justified by the Spanish
> *sino* < 'if not').
>
> Hopefully, this will be of some use to you. And thank you for sharing your
> interesting thoughts.
>
> Kind regards,
> Maxim
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