Kennaway's retreat on "only"

["61510::GILSON"<uunet!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!gilson%61510.decnet%CCF2.NRL.NAVY.MIL>]

Richard Kennaway (jrk%INFORMATION-SYSTEMS.EAST-ANGLIA.AC.UK@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU)
 writes:


>After posting one message about "only", I read And Rosta's example of a
>quite different meaning for the word, viz.

>>       Only plants reproduce asexually
>>is equivalent to:
>>       All reproduction such that it is asexual is undergone by plants.
>>I haven't worked through whether this is watertight, & I haven't written
>>any sort of rule for what _only_ means, but one can see how one might
>>proceed towards formulating the rule.

Actually, this does not violate his earlier analysis, and it is not a "quite
different meaning": It is because the "only" phrase is the subject of the
sentence that it looks different. In fact it falls under his earlier definition
as:

>...  "X is only Y" means "X is Y and, perhaps contrary to
>expectation, is not Z", where Z is left unstated.

where X=asexual reproducers,
      Y=plants,
      Z=(presumably) animals.

                                                      Bruce