German schon and noch as scalar additives with a marginality twist

Abstract

This article presents a description of German schon and noch as nontemporal scalar focus operators. Both items operate in a scalar model of sufficiency and signal that the focus value yields a more informative proposition than all alternatives under consideration; that is, they are special cases of scalar additives. Where the two expressions differ is in the complementary perspectives they evoke. Schon relates to higher alternatives. Noch relates to lower alternatives, but brings about an inverse (i.e., antonymically ordered) scalar model. The use of schon and noch as scalar sufficiency operators is traced back to an amalgamation of two other uses of the same items. The descriptive findings contribute to the advancement of our cross-linguistic understanding of scalar focus operators and raise fundamental questions pertaining to the typological and theoretical status of scale reversal phenomena.*

1. Introduction

1.1 Subject Matter and Goals

The particles schon ‘already’ and noch ‘still’ are “amongst the most widely used and most versatile expressions in German, [with] a variety of uses or meanings that interact … with many grammatical subsystems” (König 1991:133). The present article deals with a specific use of these items, namely as nontemporal scalar operators with a narrow, in-situ focus on an argument or adjunct. The examples in (1) are illustrations. ¹

Throughout this article, I refer to the function of schon and noch in examples like (1a) and (1b) as that of scalar sufficiency operators. Despite a plethora of publications on the two items, this particular use has not received a precise description, nor has it been placed in a typology of focus-sensitive operators. Against this backdrop, the main aim of this article is to answer the following two questions:

1. (i) What is the meaning contribution of schon and noch in cases like (1)?

2. (ii) What motivates this use and its semantic peculiarities?

To anticipate my analysis (section 6), I argue that schon and noch in the relevant use are propositional operators that contribute the presupposition that, among all alternatives under consideration, their focus denotation yields the most informative answer to a question involving degrees of sufficiency. They therefore constitute a special case of scalar additive operators (cf. Kay 1990, Gast & van der Auwera 2011, 2013). Where the two items differ is in the complementary perspectives they evoke. With schon, the high informativity of the overall proposition is aligned with a low focus value. Correspondingly, schon is restricted to environments in which less is more (scale reversal contexts, a.k.a. “downward entailing,” “downward monotonic,” and the like); in Gast & van der Auwera’s (2011, 2013) typology it constitutes a beneath operator. Thus, (1a) answers a question such as “How much coffee is needed?” and sets the bar for achieving positive effects lower than what the addressee may assume. With noch, on the other hand, informativeness positively correlates with focus value, which makes noch a beyond operator. However, noch comes with an additional twist, in that it brings about an inverse model of sufficiency. Applying this to the initial example, (1b) responds to “Who has what it takes … ?” and gives us to understand that this set is more extensive than perhaps assumed, extending as far as to the most unremarkable person. This inherent scale reversal raises fundamental questions about the ontological status of such phenomena (see section 6.6).

In answer to question (ii), I argue that schon and noch as scalar sufficiency operators go back to an amalgamation of two other uses of the same items. In the first use, they serve as scalar operators in conjunction with temporal frame adverbials or with expressions standing in for one, as in (2). From this use, cases like (1) inherit their association with focus and its syntactic correlates, the open scalar variable, as well as their propositional strength.

The notions of degrees of sufficiency (of both expressions), as well as the inherent scale reversal (only noch) go back to a use that is commonly referred to by the label “marginality” (König 1977, 1991, Michaelis 1993, Ippolito 2007, among others); see (3).

The structure of this article is as follows. In section 1.2 I review the existing literature on schon and noch. In section 1.3 I lay out theoretical preliminaries. Section 2 addresses the “basic” functions of schon and noch, namely as phasal expressions, and section 3 is a discussion of schon and noch as time-scalar focus particles. In section 4 I explore schon and noch as markers of marginality. This is followed by an interim summary in section 5. In section 6, I discuss my analysis in more detail. The article concludes in section 7.

1.2 Literature Review

Despite a plethora of publications on German focus-sensitive operators in general (König 1981, 1991, Jacobs 1983, König et al. 1990, Helbig 1994, Métrich & Faucher 2009, Sudhoff 2010, among others), and on schon and noch in particular (including Shetter 1966, Doherty 1973, König 1977, 1979, Abraham 1980, Gornink-Gerhardt 1981, Löbner 1989, Reiter 1989, Krifka 2000, Umbach 2009, 2012, Féry 2010, Beck 2016, 2020), there has been surprisingly little discussion of the use that is in the spotlight of this article.

Amongst the handful of available discussions, König (1981, 1991:153–154, 1993) observes that schon and noch in the relevant cases show all the structural and semantic hallmarks of focus-sensitive operators. For schon in particular, König (1981:120) speaks of an operator that “selects an alternative following the value given,” which translates into a beneath operator in Gast & van der Auwera’s (2011, 2013) typology. Similar wordings and observations are found in König et al. (1990:204), throughout König (1991), and in the DWDS and Duden dictionaries (BBAW n.d.: s.v. schon, Dudenredaktion n.d.: s.v. schon); a brief but concurring discussion of a single example is found in Zifonun et al.’s (1997:893) grammar. On a cross-linguistic note, Mosegaard Hansen (2008:183–185) and Mosegaard Hansen & Strudsholm (2008) describe structurally parallel uses of French déjà and Italian già. Like König’s (1981) characterization of schon, they translate into beneath operators in the typology employed throughout this article and they can be read as involving the notion of sufficiency.

For noch, the available information is even more limited. Apart from a brief discussion by König (1991), to the best of my knowledge, the only explicit description is found in the DWDS dictionary (BBAW n.d.: s.v. noch). There, the relevant use is described as a synonym of the scalar additive operators selbst and sogar ‘even’, found in combination with “einem Satzglied mit negativ bewertetem Inhalt” [a constituent with a negatively evaluated meaning]; I address the question of negative evaluation in section 6.5.

In sum, thus far the relevant use of schon and noch has received little attention. The two items have, however, been identified as clear cases of focus-sensitive operators, with the existing descriptions pointing towards scalar additives of some sort.

1.3 Theoretical Preliminaries

In the present article, I take a functional approach to language and assume that multifaceted items like schon and noch are best understood as forming a cluster of functions or uses, rather than having one abstract Gesamtbedeutung. These uses constitute a network of conceptual relationships, while, at the same time, they can be differentiated from one another on semanto-pragmatic and/or formal grounds (see Haspelmath 1997:59, Croft 2012:127, Janda 2015:623, among others). Importantly, as Mosegaard Hansen (2008:227), drawing on Geeraerts (1997), points out, “if the internal semantic structure of a lexical category consists in clustered and overlapping readings, then … new meanings are likely to originate in several older meanings simultaneously.”

As the aims of this article are primarily descriptive, I adopt no specific semantic framework or formalisms. Instead, I draw from a set of well-established principles and assumptions. To begin with, I take for granted that the individual contributions that interlocutors make in coherent discourse aim to provide an answer to some (possibly implicit) question under discussion (short: QuD) (Klein & von Stutterheim 1987, 1992, Roberts 1996, 2004, and references therein). For instance, (4a) below answers a question like “How content am I with her support?” and (5) involves a QuD “How powerful is this man?”

As a partial means of structuring discourse, focus relates the denotation of a specific constituent to alternative meanings available in the context (König 1981, 1991, 1993, Rooth 1992a, 1992b, Krifka 2007, among many others). Ordered sets of such denotations are referred to as scales (see Fauconnier 1975, Jacobs 1983). The ordering relations underlying scales may be strictly logical or may be mediated by “general and contingent pragmatic knowledge about how the world normally seems to work” (Israel 2011:53). Crucially, an ordering based on (pragmatically mediated) unilateral entailments means that any given scale has a single, unequivocal direction: A low rank corresponds to fewer entailments and vice versa. However, “for every canonical scale there exists a corresponding inverted scale” (Israel 2001:17); for example, degrees of plausibility versus degrees of implausibility. This point is essential for my analysis of schon and noch.

scalar focus operators provide a ranking of propositions based on pragmatic scalar models (propositional schemas), which are ordered by the degree of inference they license in answer to a question under discussion (Kay 1990, Gast & van der Auwera 2011, 2013, Israel 2011, Gast 2012, among others). An example is given in (4a), featuring propositional at least, which evokes a bouletic scalar model. As shown in (4b), each of the accessible propositions corresponds to a different degree of positive evaluation, with She tried to help me amounting to some, but not full contentment (cf. Kay 1992, Gast 2012).

A type of focus quantifier that plays a central role throughout this article is scalar additives. These trigger a presupposition that their propositional argument ranks higher (is more informative) than all other propositions under consideration (Kay 1990, Gast & van der Auwera 2011, 2013). This is illustrated in (5) for German sogar.

A higher rank in the propositional schema than all alternatives under consideration (at a given point in discourse) does not necessarily equal the highest rank in the entire model. Thus, examples like (6) may be stylistically marked, but they are by no means contradictory. In fact, sensitivity to scalar endpoints has been shown to be an independent parameter of variation across scalar additives; I return to this point in section 6.2.

As implied by the label scalar additives, these operators convey a notion of inclusivity: not only the (more informative) text proposition, but also the (less informative) context propositions are taken to be true. This meaning component is best understood as a default assumption that is derived from the scalar component and which arises under normal conversational conditions (see Fauconnier 1975, Schwarz 2005, Gast & van der Auwera 2011). Importantly, because the text proposition outranks all context propositions, the default assumption relates to the entire set. This constitutes a crucial difference from scalar restrictive operators, such as at least in (4). The latter can be understood as denoting negated universal quantification (Gast 2012). That is to say, one or more, but not all, of the ranked propositions are taken to be true.

Lastly, scalar additives are usually said to come in two primary flavors (Gast & van der Auwera 2011, 2013). With beyond operators such as sogar in (5) and (6), the ranking of the focus denotation on some salient scale correlates positively with the ranking of the entire proposition (“more is more”). With a beneath operator such as German auch nur ‘so much as’, on the other hand, this correlation is negative (“less is more”). Correspondingly, the two types of scalar additives are felicitous in different contexts. I discuss this distinction in more detail in section 6.3.

2. Schon and noch as Phasal Polarity Expressions

The most basic function of schon and noch lies in relating the polarity of a situation at a given time to that of the same situation during an adjacent interval; in typological studies, this function has come to be known by the label of “phasal polarity” (short: PhP; van Baar 1997). Phasal polarity uses are only indirectly related to the functions in the spotlight in this article and the following discussion is therefore intended as a mere baseline for comparison.

2.1 Phasal Polarity schon

Most authors agree that the main contribution of PhP schon ‘already’ and similar items in other languages lies in a presupposition that at an adjacent earlier time the situation described in the sentence did not obtain, either factually, or at least possibly (Doherty 1973, König 1977, 1991:ch. 7, Martin 1980, Löbner 1989, van Baar 1997:ch. 2, Krifka 2000, Mosegaard Hansen 2008:113–115, among many others). This is illustrated in (7), where topic time is “the time span to which the speaker’s claim on this occasion is confined” (Klein 1994:4) and ∝ symbolizes left-adjacency.

In discursive terms, schon thus triggers an alternative scenario in which a state-of-affairs has not yet come into existence and which “figures in the discourse, and/or in the mind of the Speaker, of the Addressee, or both, as a serious alternative of the factual situation” (van Baar 1997:41). This does not entail any evaluation about the relative timing of the two phases, as evidenced by the felicity of both (8a) and (8b). ⁴

When it comes to its syntactic placement, PhP schon typically occurs in the mid-field of a V2 clause (i.e., following the finite verb), as in (7) and (8). It can also occupy the forefield position, with minor changes in meaning (e.g., Klein 2018), and it can be used in elliptical questions. ⁵ Where a monotone change along some scale is aligned with time (see Löbner 1989, van der Auwera 1993, Krifka 2000), schon can constitute an adjunct to the constituent containing the focus. This is evidenced, among other things, by their cooccurrence in the forefield position of a V2 clause, as illustrated in (9). As in this example, the usual direction of change is that of an increase.

2.2 Phasal Polarity noch

When it comes to PhP noch ‘still’ and its cross-linguistic congeners, consensus has it that their semantic contribution lies in the presupposition of a prior, abutting runtime of the same situation (Doherty 1973, König 1977, Martin 1980, Löbner 1989, Mosegaard Hansen 2008:113–115, Beck 2016, 2020, among others); example (10) is an illustration.

While this existential presupposition is uncontroversial, what is more contested is the status of a possible discontinuation. Thus, it has been repeatedly observed that items like noch do not combine with inalterable states (Doherty 1973, Nedjalkov & Jaxontov 1988, Löbner 1989, Michaelis 1993, Mosegaard Hansen 2008:118, among others); this is illustrated in (11a). Cessation is, however, not entailed, as shown in (11b).

Many authors see the need for a possible discontinuation as a mere artefact, on the grounds that it would be trivial to describe a situation as persisting if it cannot end in the first place (Muller 1975, König 1977, Abraham 1980, Klein 2018, among others). Others see the invocation of a possible negative phase as a core function of ‘still’ items (e.g., Löbner 1989, Vandeweghe 1992, van der Auwera 1993, 1998, van Baar 1997:ch. 2). Whichever stance one takes, it is uncontroversial that the felicitous employment of these expressions requires a plausible discontinuation scenario. Part of the discourse contribution of noch thus lies in addressing the question as to whether a given situation has ended. In line with what was seen above for schon, this entails no evaluation of the relative timing between the two phases; see (12).

In terms of its syntax, PhP noch also mirrors schon in that it typically occupies the mid-field of the sentence, though it may also occur in the forefield and in elliptical utterances. Similarly, when phasal polarity meets narrow focus and a monotone change along a scale, noch can be a syntactic sister to the focused constituent; see (13). Note that, in this case, the two scales are negatively aligned: topic time is related to a presupposed earlier interval, whereas the alternatives to the focus are higher values (i.e., a decrease over time).

3. Schon and noch as Time-Scalar Focus Operators

As well as serving as PhP expressions, schon and noch are found as scalar operators that take a temporal frame adverbial as their associated constituent; for previous discussions, see Shetter (1966), König (1977, 1979, 1991:ch. 7), Beck (2016), Klein (2018), and Beck (2020), among others. The examples (14) are illustrations. With schon in (14a), the denotation ‘last week’ is related to later alternatives such as ‘this week’, whereas with noch in (14b) it is contrasted with earlier alternatives such as ‘a month ago’. ⁶

At first sight, one could be led to assume that what is at stake in (14) are degrees of removal from the temporal origo (‘as far back as last week’ versus ‘as recently as last week’). This is, however, an artefact of the past tense environment (König 1979), as can be seen in future contexts, such as in (15). Here, the relationship between proximity/earliness and remoteness/lateness is inversed; what remains stable is that schon involves later relata, whereas noch contrasts the focus with earlier times.

A diachronic bridge between the two functions is found in examples like (16), with a time-scalar interpretation involving ex-situ focus. Thus, in both readings, (16a) is usually understood as involving an earlier age than what the addressee may assume (recall that schon evokes an alternative scenario in which the situation does not yet manifest itself at topic time). In the same vein, under both interpretations of (16b), Emil’s pro-European stance is normally taken to persist from an earlier time, but not necessarily beyond the year 2003 (cf. Shetter 1966, Mosegaard Hansen 2008:160–162, Mosegaard Hansen & Strudsholm 2008).

This does not entail that the time under discussion constitutes an endpoint. Continuations like the ones in (17) are neither contradictory nor perceived as corrections. They merely introduce alternative times that had not been considered before.

For the present purposes, two components are crucial. Firstly, in the time-scalar use, the inherent ordering relationship of the temporal scale is preserved, as we are consistently dealing with positive calendric values. Secondly, the step from phasal polarity to a time-scalar use involves a reversal of dependencies: in PhP use, a situation’s polarity is evaluated against a given time, while in time-scalar use, time is the dependent variable (Krifka 2000). This is not the only difference between the two uses. Thus, only the time-scalar one shows the structural hallmarks of focus-sensitive operators (König 1991:153), in that it is a syntactic sister to a constituent that is identifiable as the focus both in semantic and prosodic terms. What is more, the converging interpretations found in cases like (16) are not universal. Unlike PhP noch, its time-scalar cousin does not entail an earlier runtime of the situation depicted in the clause (Beck 2020). For example, in (18) the speakers did not live in Danbury before the year 1997, yet no contradiction arises. What is more, unlike phasal noch, its time-scalar counterpart is perfectly compatible with a perfective viewpoint, as can be observed in (14b) above.

Lastly, time-scalar schon and noch clearly function as propositional operators, in that they signal that their host proposition yields a stronger (more informative) answer to some QuD than the alternatives under consideration. For instance, in (18) the focus value of 1997 yields a stronger argument for how short the speakers’ stay at Mt. Kisco was than earlier times would. All of this brings schon and noch very close to scalar additives, the main difference lying in their restriction to temporal scales. This conceptual gap is narrowed even further in cases like (19), where the associate constituent is a thematic argument and temporal reference is mediated by metonymy and encyclopedic knowledge. ¹¹

4. Schon and noch in “Marginality” Function

As I argue in this article, several of the semanto-pragmatic characteristics of schon and noch as scalar sufficiency operators go back to the same items in a use that is commonly referred to by the label of “marginality” (König 1977, 1991, Michaelis 1993, Ippolito 2007, among others). In this function, schon and noch combine with scalar predicates, including expressions for graded categories. They signal that a given entity falls within the bounds of a scale or of a portion thereof, even if it does not constitute the most representative instance. For example, in (20a), Benjamin’s skills are portrayed as barely within the reach of the subject, whereas Stefan lies across the threshold that separates beatable opponents from superior ones. In (20b), it is stated that the city of Aachen, despite its peripheral location, forms part of German territory, while Liège lies on the other side of the German–Belgian border.

4.1 Marginality and Its Relation to Phasal Polarity

Marginality uses are clearly derived from phasal polarity via metonymy (Löbner 1989, Krifka 2000, Mosegaard Hansen 2008, among others). A transfer from temporal intervals to scales such as relative skill levels (20a) or geographic locations (20b) is a characteristic sign of the “semanto-pragmatic context extension” (Himmelmann 2004) that accompanies grammaticalization processes. ¹³ And indeed, where diachronic analyses are available, marginality uses consistently show up centuries after phasal ones (Yeh 1998, Mosegaard Hansen 2008, Mosegaard Hansen & Strudsholm 2008).

As a direct carry-over from phasal polarity, marginality uses of schon and noch differ in their perspective. Thus, “still [noch] P establishes a perspective where the P scale has been under discussion; already [schon] P establishes a perspective where the ¬P to P transition is salient” (Ippolito 2007:25). For instance, (20b) is felicitous in a context where locations within Germany have been the prior subject of discussion. Despite these obvious parallels, there are noteworthy differences in meaning that set marginality uses apart from their time-related precursors. The first one is subtle. Marginality

can be said to conventionalize … the presupposition of expected transition: the speaker’s assertion that an entity bears some scalar property is informative only in so far as the entity’s location … is subject to debate. The equivocal nature of the entity’s membership … arises from it being situated at or near a transition point (Michaelis 1993:228)

Correspondingly, marginality uses are not available with clear-cut cases such as central members of a category (Muller 1991, Rombouts 1979, Mosegaard Hansen 2008, Deloor 2012, among others). Thus, examples like (21) are deviant, presumably because they address a question that would not arise in the first place. Removing schon and noch, on the other hand, yields a perfectly acceptable statement (assuming that the addressee is unfamiliar with central European geography).

This does not mean that the entity under discussion must constitute a genuine borderline case. It is merely required to lie in the zone of penumbra where inclusion in the relevant scale or a portion thereof can be called into question (Rombouts 1979, Yeh 1998, Mosegaard Hansen 2008:ch. 2, Beck 2020). This is illustrated in (22), where the continuations feature entities that are more marginal than the ones in the preceding clauses, without leading to any contradiction or oddness.

The entity under discussion may, however, constitute an endpoint, such that any stronger value would no longer be evaluable in terms of the relevant scale. This is illustrated in (23) and (24). ¹⁴ As observed by König (1977) and Grosz (2012), it is quite common for schon to appear in contexts of minimal sufficiency like (23). In (24), the maximum point of the scale vests noch with an exhaustive “I’m fine no matter what” reading.

The second crucial difference only pertains to noch. To understand it, it is worth taking another look at (20b), repeated below.

Recall that PhP noch answers the question of whether a pre-existing situation has ceased at a given time. In the same manner, the first clause in (20b) addresses the question as to whether, at the point of reaching Aachen, the German territory has ended. The key difference from phasal polarity lies in the ordering of the scale. Thus, whereas a situation ends at a point in time that equals the highest (positive) calendric value of its runtime, scales such as the geographic regions in (20b) end at their most decentral (furthest removed, most unrepresentative, etc.) elements. Correspondingly, Umbach (2009:6) posits an ordering of “inverse prototypicality”; a similar observation is made by Mosegaard Hansen (2008:175) for French encore. Schon in the second clause, on the other hand, addresses the question of whether, at Liège, the Belgian territory has begun; this is the case with its least central members (i.e., entities ranking low on a positively defined scale of centrality). A graphic comparison is given in figure 1.

Figure 1. Graphic illustration of (20b).

In more general terms then, both PhP noch and its marginality cousin involve a lower relatum, but the marginality use involves a scale the relative ordering of which is defined through the inversion of another scale. In this, marginality noch parallels what was seen in section 2.2 for those cases in which PhP noch is used in conjunction with a second scale, yielding an ongoing reduction. In a metonymical sense, the two cases are closely related: Examples like (20b) can be understood as inviting the addressee to browse their mental maps in a westerly direction, a process that takes up a perceived amount of time (Mosegaard Hansen 2008:161) and that is oriented towards a point where they “run out” of degrees of longitude that would yield an applicable argument for the predicate ‘be Germany’. While in (20b) this metonymic relation is still perceivable, the same mechanism applies to more abstract scales, like the relative skill levels in (20a). The inherent reversal brought about by marginality noch plays a crucial role in my analysis of its scalar sufficiency use.

Lastly, the meaning differences between phasal polarity and marginality have syntactic correlates. Thus, marginality schon and noch are restricted to the default mid-field position in the clause, whereas PhP schon and noch can occupy the forefield. In the same vein, only in PhP function can the two items be used in isolated, elliptical utterances (König 1977, 1991:151).

4.2 Marginality Uses vis-à-vis Scalar Sufficiency Marking

Up to this point, my discussion of marginality uses has focused on their origins and their differences from phasal polarity. It is, however, equally important to point out some crucial differences from focus quantification in general, and from schon and noch as scalar sufficiency operators specifically. To begin with, marginality schon and noch are not conventionally associated with focus (König 1991:151–152, Grosz 2012:276). Unlike typical focus-sensitive operators, they cannot be moved into the forefield position together with another constituent in examples like (20b), repeated once more below. As (20b’) shows, such a shift would result in a markedly different meaning.

More importantly, one would not “want to call the stressed element in such sentences their focus” (König 1991:151). Thus, any prosodic prominence on the subject NPs in (20b) is due to their function as contrastive topics (a focus within the sentence topic; see Krifka 2007). In fact, the relevant constituent need not receive any prominence at all: B’s answer in (25) is perfectly fine without stress on the anaphoric pronoun das.

Closely related to the preceding point, marginality and scalar sufficiency uses answer different questions. As pointed out above, in marginality uses of schon and noch, the relevant scale only figures indirectly, in that it defines the boundaries of applicable arguments. Thus, the two statements in (20b) are about the two cities, and the gap in knowledge that they address pertains to the binary opposition between two territories, in just the same way that their PhP kindred address the polarity of a situation. The scalar sufficiency use, on the other hand, provides an answer to a scalar question (the degree to which a given proposition is true).

5. Interim Summary

Before embarking on the main endeavor of this article, it is worthwhile to briefly take stock of what has been seen in the preceding sections.

In section 3, I discussed schon and noch as scalar operators modifying a temporal frame expression. In this use, they display all the hallmarks of focus-sensitive operators. Crucially, for the present purposes, they bring about an open scalar variable and signal great propositional strength (a highly informative answer). In all this, they are markedly close to scalar additive operators, a gap that is narrowed down even further in those cases where another expression, such as a thematic argument, stands in for a time-frame adverbial.

In section 4, I discussed schon and noch as markers of marginality. Unlike the time-scalar use of the two expressions, marginality is not conventionally associated with focus. Instead, it is metonymically derived from the phasal notions ‘already’ and ‘still’ and signals that an entity has a sufficient, albeit remote, degree of a relevant property to yield a true proposition. An important characteristic of marginality noch lies in the invocation of an antonymic scale (such as degrees of decentrality, atypicality, etc.). What time-scalar and marginality uses have in common is that schon consistently involves a higher relatum, whereas noch goes together with a lower relatum.

6. The Analysis: Scalar Sufficiency Operators

As I laid out initially, the main aim of the present article is to give a description of the meaning and systemic embedding of schon and noch as scalar focus operators with a nontemporal argument or adjunct as their associated constituent. The examples in (1), repeated below, are illustrations.

6.1 Summary of the Analysis

I propose that schon and noch in the scalar sufficiency use are propositional operators which contribute a presupposition that their focus yields a more informative answer (than all alternatives under consideration) to a QuD that inquires about sufficient degrees of some property. As such, their meaning encompasses that of scalar additive operators like sogar ‘even’ and auch nur ‘so much as’. The two expressions differ from each other in that they evoke complementary perspectives.

More precisely, with schon, a high degree of propositional strength goes together with a low focus value (a low degree of some salient property). Correspondingly, this expression is distributionally restricted to those environments in which inferences run from less to more; using Gast & van der Auwera’s (2011, 2013) terms, it constitutes a beneath operator. The initial example (1a) (Schon eine Tasse am Tag senkt dauerhaft den Blutdruck) is thus felicitous in the contexts of QuDs such as “How much coffee is needed …?” It signals that the bar for achieving positive effects lies lower than the addressee may assume, in that a single cup per day suffices. This analysis mirrors what has been described, albeit in different terms, for French déjà and Italian già in structurally parallel use (see Mosegaard Hansen 2008:183–185, Mosegaard Hansen & Strudsholm 2008); I return to cross-linguistic issues in section 6.6.

With noch, on the other hand, propositional strength positively correlates with focus value; in Gast & van der Auwera’s (2011, 2013) typology, it is a type of beyond operator. But, as a refreshing twist, noch operates on a propositional schema of inverse sufficiency: its ranking of propositional strength is based on the antonymic ordering of some contextually salient scale. Applying this to the initial example, (1b) (Noch der armseligste Mensch ist fähig, die Schwächen des bedeutendsten zu erkennen), is felicitous in the context of questions such as “Who has what it takes to detect the weaknesses of others?” In response, it counters an assumption that the basest of humans is too unremarkable to be capable of such an act (thereby giving rise to an exhaustive reading).

In other words, both schon and noch involve a reversal of the direction in which inferences run. With schon, a lower focus value yields a stronger statement. With noch, great propositional strength goes together with a high focus value, but this is based on an upside-down scalar model. This “glass half empty/half full” situation is, without doubt, the reason for König’s (1991:134) observation that in cases like (26) “the contrast between schon and noch is almost neutralised.” ¹⁷ That is, (26a) and (26b) are logically equivalent, but address different questions: “When do I get into trouble?” or “Where does an offense begin?” (26a) versus “How deeply in trouble am I?” or “How far does an offense extend?” (26b). A graphic comparison is given in figure 2.

Figure 2. Graphic illustration of (26).

Moving on to the question of intra-systemic motivation, in section 3 I showed that schon and noch pattern together as scalar operators with temporal frame adverbials and expressions standing in for such a frame setter, a function that brings them markedly close to scalar additives. It is from this use that schon and noch as scalar sufficiency operators inherit their first bundle of features, namely the association with focus and its syntactic correlates, the open scalar variable, and the specification of a high degree of informativeness (propositional strength). As a matter of fact, temporal or time-relational overtones are often latently available, in that many examples can be read as primarily scalar, but also subtly evoke a qualitative change over time, or a sequential consideration of alternatives in the form of a “mental category scan,” to use a term from Mosegaard Hansen (2008:181). The notion of degrees of sufficiency (both items) and the inverted scale that noch brings out are characteristic of the marginality uses discussed in section 4. In fact, the same meaning, or virtually so, can be rendered compositionally by resorting to a more canonical scalar additive operator plus marginality schon or noch. This is shown in (27).

The interweaving of time-scalar schon and noch and their marginality counterparts is facilitated by the fact that, across the two sets of uses, schon consistently involves relata that rank higher on some scale, whereas noch relates to lower alternatives. It finds additional motivation in the use of schon and noch with narrow focus and monotone changes along some scale (section 2). Possible bridging contexts are found in examples like (28), which allows for two mutually compatible readings. In the first interpretation, am Grabe represents the latest stage of the ‘weary race’. In the second reading, it stands for the maximal removal from one’s prime of life.

In what follows, I discuss each of the ingredients of my analysis in more detail and present diagnostic evidence for them. In doing so, I proceed from the more general to the more specific elements (sections 6.2–6.4). Subsequently, I address a few additional differences between schon and noch (section 6.5) and offer a brief summary plus theoretical and cross-linguistic reflections (section 6.6).

6.2 The Commonalities

Before turning to the more intricate questions, it is necessary to establish the commonalities between the two markers, namely that they constitute focus-sensitive operators which signal a high rank in a propositional schema involving degrees of sufficiency, and that the latter constitutes presupposed material.

As far as the first point is concerned, König (1991:153–154, 1993) discusses how schon and noch in cases like (1) and (26) show all the hallmarks of German focus-sensitive operators. They are syntactic sisters to another constituent, as evidenced by their co-occurring in the forefield of V2 clauses, such as in (1), and by their moving through the clause together, as seen in the permutations of (1) in (1’). In addition, they are cross-categorical: they often function adnominally, as in (1) and (26), but they are also attested in conjunction with elements from other syntactic classes, such as the endophoric element deshalb in (29). This constituent, in turn, is identifiable as containing the focus in both prosodic and semantic terms: It receives nuclear stress, invokes alternative denotations, and is the target of a WH-question addressed by the sentence (e.g., “How much coffee is needed…?”, “Who is capable…?”, “For which reason?”).

Having established that we are dealing with focus-sensitive operators, I now turn to the core commonality of the two items: Whatever the denotation of their focus, it is invariably understood as being a rung on a scale of sufficiency and is related to alternatives that yield a less informative proposition (i.e., to more clear-cut or less “unexpected” cases). Thus, as discussed above, in (1a) the bar for achieving the desired effects is set lower than the addressee might assume. Similarly, (1b) counters the implicit assumption that the basest of humans has insufficient qualities to be capable of detecting the weaknesses of those morally superior. In the same vein, (29) evokes closer degrees of examination of the proposal and implies that they will lead to the same conclusion. Examples like the ones in (30) and (31), on the other hand, are markedly odd. If interpretable at all, they can only mean that the entity denoted by the focus has a remote, yet sufficient, degree of some property to form an applicable argument for the predicate. In other words, the only possible interpretation is one that is parallel to the one discussed for the preceding examples. ¹⁸

In section 1.3 I briefly pointed out that scalar additives can differ in their sensitivity to scalar endpoints. Thus, with “run-of-the-mill” scalar additives, such as English even, the text proposition outranks all contextually salient alternatives; this may or may not mean that it occupies the highest rank in the entire model (Kay 1990). Expressions like Spanish hasta, Hindi -tak, and Dutch ook maar, on the other hand, require the focus to constitute a genuine endpoint (Hoeksema & Rullmann 2001, Schwenter & Vasishth 2001, Schwenter 2003).

Against this backdrop, schon and noch stand out as recurrently being attested in end-of-scale assertions. Thus, in (1a) a single cup arguably constitutes the minimal unit of coffee, (1b) features a superlative, and in (29) a lack of elaboration can be considered to be the least specific argument against a proposal. That said, a threshold value does not appear to form a prerequisite. For one, a collocational preference for endpoints can equally well be explained by the fact that the latter provide a particularly suitable environment for the employment of scalar additive operators (cf. Kay 1990:89). Secondly, scalar sufficiency schon and noch can be used in “scale-climbing” contexts, similar to what was seen for other uses in sections 3 and 4. For schon, this is shown in (32) and (33). ¹⁹ The constructed example (32) features a decrease in dosage and the natural attestation in (33) involves a metaphorical downward movement on a scale of “amounts of linguistic information.” Yet neither of the two cases gives rise to self-contradiction.

The same observation applies, mutatis mutandis, to noch. Thus, the continuation of the constructed example in (34) features a greater removal from the standard of a crime than the subject of the preceding clause, and the naturally occurring example given in (35) involves an increase in dilution.

Such cases of figurative motion along a scale strongly suggest that a reading of the focus as an endpoint goes back to a generalized scalar implicature, in line with Kay’s (1990:90 fn. 32) observation that with English even “the item focused … is (normally) implicated to be the most extreme item of which the asserted predication is true,” compounded by the fact that questions of sufficiency usually call for an exhaustive answer (e.g., Beck & Rullmann 1999). At the same time, this implicature can also be derived by evoking the marginality use, which features a perspective towards an endpoint (section 4.1). Further support for threshold readings being due to implicature comes from the nonredundant reinforcement ‘therewith the limit had been reached’ in (35).

Lastly, the status of the different meaning components needs to be addressed. Standard projection contexts show that the propositional complement of schon and noch constitutes at-issue content, whereas the ranking on a scale is presupposed. For instance, the proposition is not entailed in questions (36) or under negation (37), whereas the rank order survives in such contexts.

6.3 The Differences: beneath versus beyond

Having established that schon and noch in the relevant use signal that the focus denotation yields a more informative answer to a sufficiency QuD than all alternatives under consideration, the differences between the two items are up for examination.

To address the first point of divergence, a brief excursion is needed. As mentioned in section 1.3, we can distinguish between two primary flavors of scalar additives, based on the correlation between the high rank of their propositional argument in a scalar model and the relative rank of the focus on some salient scale. With a beneath operator, to employ Gast & van der Auwera’s (2011, 2013) mnemonic label, the correlation is negative. Correspondingly, this type of operator is felicitous only in those environments that license inferences from low to high, but not the other way around. In different traditions, such less-is-more contexts are referred to as “scale-reversing” (e.g., Haspelmath 1997, Gast & van der Auwera 2011), “downward-entailing” (Ladusaw 1979), or “downward monotonic” (Gamut 1991). Well-established cases of dedicated beneath operators include English so much as, German auch nur, ²⁰ and Italian anche solo (Gast & van der Auwera 2011, 2013, and references therein). With beyond operators such as German sogar or Italian perfino, on the other hand, high propositional strength is aligned with a high focus value. It follows that these items are only found in those environments in which more is indeed more, i.e., contexts that go by the name of “scale-preserving,” “upward entailing,” “upward monotonic,” and the like. ²¹

Equipped with this background, I now return to the two items in the spotlight of this article. According to the analysis I propose, schon signals that a lower rank on a salient scale yields a more informative proposition. It therefore constitutes a hyponym of the beneath operator auch nur. This predicts that, like the latter, schon is felicitous in less-is-more (“scale reversal”) environments, but not in more-is-more (“scale preserving”) ones. A first indication of this was seen in (1a), repeated below. Here, achieving the desired effects by a lower daily dose than perhaps assumed yields a more informative proposition. Correspondingly, schon can be faithfully swapped for auch nur, the main and subtle difference in meaning being that with schon, a time-related reading ‘after drinking a single cup, you’ll have achieved the effect’ remains latently available.

Example (38) is another illustration. Here, the first sentence of the text establishes a life of slavery as the discourse topic and a lower threshold for things ‘beyond imagination’ corresponds to a higher degree of entrenchment of the known circumstances; see (38b). This interpretation is supported by the fact that auch nur is a viable substitute for schon.

A similar case is found in (39). A lower degree of sensory stimulation here yields a more informative answer to the question as to how appalled the speaker is: feeling nausea at the mere sight of sugared water normally entails the same reaction to tasting or swallowing it, but not the other way around. Again, this is confirmed by the felicity of auch nur.

Further support for schon being compatible with scale reversal contexts comes from the (somewhat redundant, but attested) combination auch nur schon, illustrated in (40).

The examples so far have given positive evidence that schon is compatible with less-is-more environments. Evidence that it is infelicitous outside of these contexts can be found in cases like (41). Here, a beyond operator like sogar fares well, whereas schon patterns with auch nur in being extremely odd. The only way to make sense of the latter would be by adding a precursor such as ‘You don’t need much to please his taste’, thereby effectively introducing a less-is-more context.

Moving over to a more natural example, consider (5), repeated below. Given the positive correlation between informativeness and the degree of control exercised, schon once again patterns with auch nur in being infelicitous. For further examples of negative evidence, see below.

In sum, the preceding discussion has shown that schon in the relevant use is not only felicitous in contexts where inferences run from less to more, but infelicitous outside of these. It thus classifies as a beneath operator in Gast & van der Auwera’s (2011, 2013) typology.

As for noch, my analysis has it that this item is a special case of a beyond operator, invariably aligning a high degree of some property with a high-ranking proposition. In this, its meaning encompasses that of the more canonical beyond operator sogar. Against this backdrop, consider (42). Nothing in the discourse context suggests inferences from (propositions containing) lower to higher values, which is supported by the fact that swapping noch for the the beneath operator auch nur results in infelicity, and so does using schon. The beyond operator sogar, on the other hand, is a viable replacement. The choice of noch over sogar might be partially motivated by the fact that noch allows for a secondary reading in which the social media posts become more absurd over time. ²⁵

Example (1b), repeated below, presents a similar image. Here, noch could be swapped for the beyond operator sogar, while staying faithful to the original text. Similar to (42), the main difference is that noch subtly evokes prior consideration of less morally depraved subjects. Using auch nur instead of noch, on the other hand, results in infelicity. Lastly, schon does – at least without further context – constitute a somewhat viable substitute. Crucially, however, its employment would result in a reading of minimal sufficiency ‘need look no further than …’, as opposed to the inclusive ‘ranging all the way to …’ idea conveyed by the original text.

The same difference in viewpoint can be observed in (43), which is based on (39) above. The beneath operator schon in (43a) yields the familiar reading of a minimally sufficient condition: The speaker states that they need not go any further than seeing the sugared water to feel nausea. With noch in (43b), on the other hand, seeing the water is a more advanced step than the alternatives – albeit a step in the opposite direction, away from consuming the water (a higher degree on an inverted scale). The latter point provides a direct segue to the last ingredient of my analysis.

6.4 The Additional Twist: More of Less Is More

In view of the behavior of noch in examples like (43b), it is worthwhile taking a second look at its textual attestations. One common denominator stands out: The propositional argument goes together with a high rank on an inverted scalar model (a scale whose ordering is defined antonymically). Working our way backwards, example (42) involves a scale of implausibility, an interpretation that finds support in the surrounding text: The complement clause containing noch is introduced by sich einreden ‘talk oneself into believing’, which is oriented towards the reverse, and the discourse topic is defined negatively as well (the age of disinformation). Example (35) features degrees of dilution, that is, a ranking based on negative exponents, and (1b) plays with opposing ends of the same spectrum (‘the basest of humans’ versus ‘the most eminent’). Somewhat comparable to (1b), in (47) below the reversal of standards is made explicit in the immediately preceding sentence: The expressions of life ‘enter the service of their diametrical opposite’.

Crucially, while nothing prevents a more conventional beyond operator like sogar from combining with such negative scales, they do not constitute a prerequisite for its employment. In fact, it is in comparison with such canonical scalar additives that the negative orientation of noch becomes particularly evident. Consider, for instance, (44). Employing noch here would not per se yield an ill-formed statement. But it would require an unusual embedding, such as a context in which Hanna allowed all kinds of lowlifes to her wedding, plus a discourse universe in which the pope is the epitome of an undesirable guest (‘It wasn’t exactly a select crowd. The most horrible characters attended, ranging all the way down to the Pope.’)

Turning to a naturally occurring example, swapping sogar for noch in (45a) would result in outright infelicity. The QuD here pertains to the degree of impact the 1873 financial crisis had, and the relevant property scale are ranks on the (positively defined) socio-economic pyramid; see (45b). This conflicts with the negative orientation that would go along with noch.

To summarize, the appropriateness conditions of scalar sufficiency noch include an inverted scale, reflecting, in essence, what was seen for marginality noch in section 4.1. I return to some of the theoretical and typological implications of this in section 6.6 below.

6.5 Some further differences

Before concluding my exposition of schon and noch as scalar sufficiency operators, it is worth addressing a few more differences between the two expressions. The first difference relates directly to the topic of the preceding section: The DWDS dictionary (BBAW n.d.: s.v. noch) observes a conventional association of scalar sufficiency noch, but not schon, with “einem Satzglied mit negativ bewertetem Inhalt” [a constituent with a negatively evaluated meaning]. This association is clearly reflected in collocates like der armseligste Mensch ‘the basest of humans’ in (1a) or der dümmste Tweet ‘the most stupid tweet’ in (42). Example (46) is another such case, with the focus ‘the son who abused him’ constituting a particularly undesirable specimen of offspring.

While the recurrent nature of such examples does point towards a strong association with negative evaluations, such an emotive meaning is not entailed. For instance, if (26b) (noch der Versuch ist strafbar ‘even the attempt is an offense’) carries any bouletic overtones at all, they can certainly be attributed to the topic of unlawful acts. Similarly, the degrees of dilution in (35) are clearly not subject to any subjective assessment. Rather than being an invariable part of the meaning of noch, the preference for negatively evaluated foci is probably best understood as an artefact that goes back to two closely intertwined factors. First, noch’s raison d’être lies in countering the (possibly implicit) assumption that the focus is insufficient to yield a true proposition. That is, the focus is often taken to be defective in some way. Secondly, it is well known that negatively defined property expressions often align with subjectively negative connotations (Lehrer 1985, Horn 1989:276, Paradis et al. 2012, among others).

Support for the interpretation just outlined comes from the excerpt in (47). ²⁷ Here, the ‘blossoming tree’ is, by all social standards, an exceptionally innocent expression of life. However, it is portrayed against the background of a corrupted world. That is, we are effectively dealing with two negative signs that cancel each other out: In a setting where the default assumption of innocence no longer holds true, the blossoming tree corresponds to the highest value on a scale that is the inverse of dishonesty (hence honesty).

My second observation is, at the current stage, a purely impressionistic one: It seems that scalar sufficiency noch is primarily encountered in formal and/or written registers, whereas schon is common across all diaphasic varieties. Subsequent corpus work, comparing written and oral texts, is needed to assess this impression.

The third and last observation is a structural one. Whereas both schon and noch are found with argument and adjunct foci, schon is occasionally attested with a predicate in its focus. This was seen in (39), repeated below. It appears that this kind of usage is restricted to a mostly idiomatic construction consisting of a conditional antecedent and a verb of perception, often with ellipsis of the following clause, as in (48). Noch is very odd, at best, in these contexts; see (49). Here, too, corpus work is needed to evaluate my impressions.

6.6 Summary and Discussion

In the preceding sections I have given diagnostic evidence for each of the ingredients of my analysis of schon and noch as scalar sufficiency operators. In what follows, I discuss some theoretical implications of this analysis and then turn to a cross-linguistic comparison.

As far as theoretical implications are concerned, the complementary perspectives evoked by schon and noch raise the question of how to deal with scale reversal (the reversal of the direction in which inferences run), both from a typological and from an ontological point of view. Thus, in the predominant school of thought, which is reflected in Gast & van der Auwera’s (2011, 2013) typology of scalar additives, scale reversal is a primarily structural phenomenon. beneath operators (“less is more”) such as auch nur or so much as are defined by recourse to two nested structural domains. They yield (what would be) a weaker proposition in their narrow local domain, whereas in a wider host domain they bring about a more informative proposition. Put differently, they require wide scope over some scale-reversing operator. This approach works very well for an item like schon, although it requires the occasional clutch of an implicit conditional in cases like (38a), repeated below.

beyond operators (“more is more”) like sogar or Italian perfino are usually understood as taking local scope. They therefore require a high focus value to satisfy the need for a high-ranking proposition. This means that there is no straightforward way of dealing with an item like noch. Recall that, in principle, noch behaves like a beyond operator in that it aligns a high focus value with a high-ranking proposition. This, however, neglects the fact that it requires the focus value to be ranked on a negatively defined scale.

All this becomes less of an issue in a usage-based approach. For one, what we are dealing with is a classic case of persistence (in both senses of the word). Simplifying slightly, noch addresses the question of the extent of (in)sufficient degrees – a textbook example of semantic retention (e.g., Hopper 1991), going all the way back to noch as ‘still’. Now, in a radically pragmatic approach to scalar reasoning, such as the one proposed in Israel (2001, 2011), propositional strength and scalar ranks are both understood to form part of an individual item’s lexical endowment. Seen from this angle, a beneath operator like schon or auch nur is lexically specified for a low rank on some salient scale, plus a strong statement. Its restriction to certain contexts is not a principally structural phenomenon, but rather a structural correlate of its core meaning. This, in turn, provides a motivated explanation for the felicity of cases like (39a), without the need to resort to a “silent” or reversal operator. The data on noch suggest that perspective (or scalar orientation) can constitute an additional, independent, and lexically specified parameter.

Moving on to a cross-linguistic comparison, in section 6.1 I pointed out that schon as a scalar sufficiency operator finds direct parallels in markers such as French déjà and Italian già (see Mosegaard Hansen 2008, Mosegaard Hansen & Strudsholm 2008); the examples in (50) are illustrations. The corresponding ‘still’ expressions encore and ancora, however, have not been described as having a similar use, and employing them in translations of examples like (1b) results in an ill-formed sentence; see (51). This is despite both items having the time-scalar as well as the marginality use.

The notion of linguistic motivation is, of course, a nonpredictive one (e.g., Goldberg 2006:127). Nonetheless, it appears worthwhile to briefly reflect on this functional asymmetry. One reason appears to lie in the fact that déjà and già ‘already’ as time-scalar operators readily combine with expressions that “stand in” for a temporal frame adverbial (Mosegaard Hansen & Strudsholm 2008), whereas encore/ancora are odd in such uses; see (52). That is, a crucial intermediate step is missing for the latter two items.

Beyond these intra-systemic factors, it is conceivable that the apparent cross-linguistic rarity of noch-like markers also finds an explanation in the high semantic and cognitive load of negative property expressions (Boucher & Osgood 1969, Higgins 1977, Lyons 1977:275–276, Lehrer 1985, among others). In other words, in natural discourse, a QuD of positive sufficiency might be more likely to arise than for the same state-of-affairs to be approached from the opposite end. This could also explain the restriction of scalar sufficiency noch to specific registers of German (if confirmed in subsequent research).

7. Conclusions and Outlook

In the present article I have given a descriptive analysis of German schon and noch as scalar operators with narrow, nontemporal in-situ focus. I have shown that both expressions function in a pragmatic model of sufficiency. They signal that focus denotation yields a more informative proposition than all alternatives under consideration. Where the two items differ is in their perspectives (the intricate interplay between propositional strength, values on a scale, and the orientation of the latter). Their syntactic and semanto-pragmatic core characteristics can be traced back to a blend of two other functions of the same items, namely: (i) as scalar operators modifying temporal frame expressions, and (ii) as markers of marginality. Both of these are, in turn, ultimately derived from schon as ‘already’ and noch as ‘still’. Due to this legacy, a temporal or time-related reading (e.g., the sequential consideration of alternatives) often remains latently available.

Besides these primarily descriptive findings, the present article has made a contribution to our general understanding of focus-sensitive operators. Thus, the data on noch raise the principled question of the ontological and typological status of scale reversal phenomena (inferences running from less to more). In the predominant school of thought, which is reflected in Gast & van der Auwera’s (2011, 2013) typology of scalar additives, scale reversal is a primarily structural phenomenon. This cannot account for an operator like noch, which positively aligns propositional strength with focus value, but based on an antonymic scale. From a usage-based perspective, on the other hand, this is essentially a non-issue. I have therefore suggested that scale reversal might better be treated as an independent parameter of variation, which is in line with more radically pragmatic approaches like the one advocated for by Israel (2001, 2011).

That said, several open questions remain. In the purely descriptive domain, two hypotheses require further corpus-based scrutiny. The first is that scalar sufficiency noch is a primarily written and/or formal phenomenon. The second hypothesis is that schon with predicate focus is only found in largely idiomatic constructions involving a conditional antecedent plus a verb of perception. Lastly, the apparent rarity of noch-like markers requires further cross-linguistic scrutiny.