[Lingtyp] Corrective 'but (rather)'

Thu Jun 11 09:41:18 UTC 2026

Dear Mira , dear All,

Bjoern writes
<<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"]>>

Mira's answer:
<<And you don't need to construe 'professor' here as a weaker scalar term
than student? Because there ARE contexts where 'student' would be the
stronger term, of course. (1) Ironic contexts; (2) A context where students
get a discount on tickets to university concerts.>>
This applies to Italian too:
*Non sono uno studente, solo un professore *
would sound very strange, unless under particular cotenxtual,
pragmatic situations, such as (1) and (2) in Mira's reply.

The same holds for  Bjoern's ex. (2):
<<It seems to be worse with the translation of the English example with the
adjective
(2)     Es ist nicht grün, nur gelb >>.

Mira: Maybe because it's harder to construe a scale between  two colors?
*Non è verde, solo (??)  giallo*   vs.   *Non è verde ma giallo*

Best wishes
Paolo

Il giorno gio 11 giu 2026 alle ore 11:10 Mira Ariel via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> ha scritto:

> Hi,
>
> The following responses to Bjoern, marked **, may be too much for most
> readers. In that case, just ignore my message.
>
> Best,
> Mira
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wiemer, Bjoern <wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2026 8:03 PM
> To: Mira Ariel <mariel at tauex.tau.ac.il>; Cat Butz <Cat.Butz at hhu.de>
> Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Subject: RE: [Lingtyp] Corrective 'but (rather)'
>
> Okay. Based on your criteria, let me try to understand:
> a) You call a "holistic" reading a use in which there cannot be an
> intonational break? ("Break" defined in terms of abrupt change in prosodic
> contour?)
>
> **"Holistic" is first off a (Goldbergian) construction, namely, less than
> fully compositional.
> With respect to prosody: The corrective does not typically have a final
> prosody on the first conjunct (2/16 cases in Hebrew). It may span over 1 or
> 2 intonation units (16/16 take up 2 or more IUs). Of course, this is a very
> small sample of Hebrew.
>
> I believe that the compositional 'Not X only Y' cannot occur in a single
> IU. I have no data.
>
> b) Then, the 'corrective' reading is the holistic one.
> c) However, to distinguish it from the 'only' interpretation may be
> troublesome, because the 'corrective' reading need not be pronounced in one
> intonation unit (and thus be pronounced the same way as the 'only' reading)?
>
> **There are other parameters, such as interpretation, deletion.
>
> As far as I'm able to judge (as an informed L2-speaker of Polish and an
> L1-speaker [likewise informed] of German), practically all the conditions
> for the 'corrective' reading seem to be fulfilled. In particular, gapping
> seems to be usual for Pol. "tylko" and Germ. "nur" in this reading, i.e.
> all elements identical for both conjuncts are omitted in the second
> conjunct. (Whether this is, in any reasonable sense, obligatory, might be
> subject to further study.)
> ** I would think it's much more optional for the 'only' string than for
> the 'corrective' strings. In Eng, for example, failure to do the deletion
> gets you a concessive reading instead: She's not a judge but she's a
> lawyer, which is why the following would not normally be acceptable: She's
> not a lawyer but she's a judge'.
>
> However, I am wondering whether some of your criteria are sufficiently
> distinctive, in analytical practice. First, see my c) above. Second, how
> would you distinguish the 'corrective/holistic' reading, which "Can be
> pronounced in 1 or 2 intonation units", from "tylko/nur" used as an
> afterthought (after an intonational break resp. falling intonation after
> the first clausal unit)? In German you can have [punctuation used as a
> proxy for intonation]:
>
> (3a) Ich bin kein Student. Nur Professor.
> (3b) Ich bin kein Student, nur Professor.
>
> As an L1-speaker, I would be reluctant to accept (3a) with "sondern",
> instead -- however, I suspect, this is conditioned by education in writing,
> and not much more. Thus, it wouldn't be unnatural (in my perception) in
> spontaneous conversation. For me, the moral from this little armchair
> linguistics [I'd be happy to know whether this has been investigated with
> authentic data] is that (i) there may always be borderline cases, (ii) in
> particular if we consider possible "synonyms" (e.g., "nur/bloß/sondern"),
> and (iii) much of our judgment may depend on our habits conditioned by
> education (mainly with written patterns). Similar "lessons" would probably
> obtain for the other criteria you have listed below. This creates problems
> for how to measure judgments (even if based on authentic data, including
> data from good quality sound files).
>
> **I believe some of this I've answered above (and there were other
> criteria in my previous message). Borderline cases are to be expected, and
> may be informative! Maybe the 'corrective only' languages evolved the
> corrective use out of an initial 'only' use.
>
>
> Moreover, I think your first condition 2. below requires specification.
> Not only because it seems to rule out afterthoughts (which, however, might
> create a problem -- see above), but because, as far as I'm aware, there are
> different kinds of "falling intonation" (and intonational patterns
> sometimes have an emic dimension, i.e. they may differ among languages, so
> that direct comparisons between, say, Hebrew, German, Polish, Russian,
> might fail).
>
> **Never say never. Increments are cases where a speaker adds a
> syntactically legitimate phrase following a final (falling intonation. I
> have one case where A says "I'm not blaming X. And B says: Ela? 'But
> rather'?
>
>         Sorry for my long wording, and for putting my nose partly into
> matters I'm really not a specialist in. But your interesting issue
> intrigued me, also for the reason that it raises problems in how to treat
> borderline cases and criteria that inherently overlap (see my c) above).
> **I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds this interesting. Thank you!
>
> Best,
> Björn.
>
>
> +++++++++++
>
> Thanks for this!
>
> Just off the top of my head (this is very much the first steps in this
> research).
>
> The 'only' interpretation:
> 1. Cannot be pronounced within a single intonation unit.
> 2. Requires the second alternative to be construed as a weaker scalar term.
> 3. Need not be abridged (It's not green, it's only yellow)
>
> The 'corrective' interpretation:
> 1. Can be pronounced in 1 or 2 intonation units.
> 2. First conjunct cannot receive final falling intonation, a giveaway for
> the holistic structure.
> 2. Oblivious to scalar structure
> 3. Very much preferably abridged (? It's not green but it's yellow).
> 3. Yellow is the only alternative to green, but there may be other colors
> in the picture. It's just that there's no green.
>
> Having said that, it's not inconceivable to me that the 'only'
> interpretation can evolve into the 'sondern' interpretation with the other
> differences accompanying the change.
>
> German
> Bjoren: 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"]
>
> Mira: And you don't need to construe 'professor' here as a weaker scalar
> term than student? Because there ARE contexts where 'student' would be the
> stronger term, of course. (1) Ironic contexts; (2) A context where students
> get a discount on tickets to university concerts.
>
> Bjoren: It seems to be worse with the translation of the English example
> with the adjective
> (2)     Es ist nicht grün, nur gelb.
> Mira: Maybe because it's harder to construe a scale between he two colors?
>
> Best,
>
> Mira
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wiemer, Bjoern <wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2026 2:52 PM
> To: Cat Butz <Cat.Butz at hhu.de>; Mira Ariel <mariel at tauex.tau.ac.il>
> Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Subject: RE: [Lingtyp] Corrective 'but (rather)'
>
> 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"]
>
> And you don't need to construe 'professor' here as a weaker scalar term?
>
> 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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> > Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> > https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
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