In English, the word “only” is doubtless the most movable and most easily misplaced modifier. In any of its three roles as
adjective,
adverb, or
conjunction, “only” can effortlessly flit from place to place, creating as many meanings as the number of positions it could logically perch upon in the sentence. It is, in a word, the ultimate
floating quantifier, either intensifying or diminishing the semantic degree of the nouns or verbs it modifies.
Consider the various meanings or senses that the word “only” creates by virtue of the five positions it takes in the following sentences:
“
Only I think Eleanor belongs to this league.” (“It’s only I that think Eleanor belongs to this league.”)
“I
only think Eleanor belongs to this league.” (“That’s the only thought I have at the moment: that Eleanor belongs to this league.”)
“I think
only Eleanor belongs to this league.” (“This is what I think: only Eleanor belongs to this league and no one else around here.”
“I think] Eleanor belongs
only to this league.” (“This is what I think: Eleanor belongs only to this league and to no other.”)
“I think Eleanor belongs to this league
only.” (“This is what I think: it is only to this league that Eleanor rightfully belongs.”)
Then, after these five adjectival or adverbial roles, consider, too, how “only” works as a conjunction:
In the role of “but”: “You may vote anyone you like,
only vote wisely.”
In the role of “yet”: “Eleanor looks lovely,
only she’s already very much married.”
In the role of “except” or “were it not that”: “I’d like to bring Eleanor to Baguio,
only that she might enjoy the place so much and stay there the whole summer.”
If we are not careful, “only” would already be capable of creating so much ambiguity and semantic mischief even outside of its role as a conjunctive. For instance, when describing a situation where we wanted to talk to a manager but only got as far as talking to his secretary, we probably would say “I saw
only his secretary” or “I
only saw his secretary,” either of which would adequately convey what happened. Then take note that a rather stilted way to say it, “I saw his secretary
only,” even more faithfully describes what happened. Even so, the ambiguity remains.
However, the situation isn’t that bad in spoken usage, where “only” can be floated more freely without creating ambiguity. This is because a stronger stress can always be given to the word that the speaker wants “only” to modify, thus clearly establishing a clear intent and semantic linkage.
We can see how this speech mechanism operates in the following spoken constructions, where the stressed words are shown in all-capital letters:
“I
only saw HIS SECRETARY.” (“I saw nobody else.”)
“I
only SAW his secretary.” (“Yes, I did see her, but I didn’t speak to her.”)
Taking into account the pitfalls in using “only” as a floating modifier in written prose, language experts have come up with the following recommendation:
to be safe, place “only” immediately before the phrase we want it to modify. This means that in the office situation we described earlier, for instance, the safest—but not necessarily the best—written construction to describe what happened is the first version: “I
saw only his secretary.”
With “only” coming right before the noun phrase it modifies, “his secretary,” the construction poses the least danger of ambiguity. When spoken, however, the most natural and most felicitous version is obviously this other one: “I
only saw his secretary.” It’s much closer to the rhythm of speech, and it will be foolhardy for us to tinker with it simply to conform to the norms for edited or more formal prose.
This essay, 211th of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the August 18, 2022 digital edition of The Manila Times
, ©2022 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.Read this essay online in
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When the word “only” goes haywire(Next week:
Reining in those footloose modifiers) August 25, 2022
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