How French Sheds New Light on Scalar Particles

Abstract

This paper examines the behavior of the French scalar focus-sensitive particles même, quand même, ne serait-ce que and seulement as compared to English even and only. I first show that French même displays a more restricted distribution than even: this behavior and that of its antonym quand même argue for the scope theory against the ambiguity theory of even. Secondly, I demonstrate that the behavior of ne serait-ce que and seulement reveal the existence of an intrinsic link between even-like particles and only-like particles. To capture this observation and more generally the organic relation between scalar particles, I propose a new, parsimonious, theory that builds scalarity, additivity and exclusivity of scalar particles into a conjunctive or disjunctive meaning.