‘Even-문’의 해석

The Interpretation of ‘Even-Sentences.’

The purpose of this article is to analyze the meaning of ‘even’, showing that Lycan’s analysis and other quantifier accounts are problematic. Most writers on ‘even’ agree that the word makes some contribution to the meaning of sentences in which it figures. The word ‘even’ does not make a truth-conditional difference; it makes a difference only in conventional implicature. The felicity of an ‘even’-sentence S requires that S’ be more surprising than most true neighbors. ‘Even’ is a scalar term, since unexpectedness comes in degrees. In particular, ‘even’ functions neither as a universal quantifier, nor as a quantifier like most or many. The only quantified statement that ‘Even A is F’ implies is the existential claim “There is an x (namely, A) that is F.” ‘Even’ implies some type of unexpectedness, surprise, or unlikelihood. Moreover, this implication is part of the meaning of ‘even’.