Skip to main content
Log in

The relationship betweenschon/already andnoch/still: A reply to Löbner

  • Published:
Natural Language Semantics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

According to Löbner (1989), Germanschon ‘already’ andnoch ‘still’ are related vianoch nicht ‘not yet’ as follows: ‘Noch p att’ presupposes ‘p beforet.Noch nicht p is equivalent tonoch (~p). Therefore ‘noch nicht p att’ presupposes ‘~p beforet.Schon p is the negation ofnoch nicht p. Therefore ‘schon p att’ also presupposes ‘~p beforet.’ This paper gives evidence to show thatnoch nicht p andschon p do not have the postulated presuppositions, and argues thatnoch nicht is not compositional. Like Löbner (1989), the present paper claims that its conclusions apply crosslinguistically.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Auwera, Johan van der: 1991, ‘Beyond Duality’, in J. van der Auwera (ed.),EUROTYP Working Papers 5.2: Adverbs and Particles of Change and Continuation, European Science Foundation.

  • Baker, C. L.: 1970, ‘Double Negatives’,Linguistic Inquiry 1, 169–185.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bucholz, Oda: 1991, ‘Entsprechungen in den Balkansprachen zuschon — nicht mehr — noch — noch nicht’ [Equivalents in Balkan languages ofschon etc.], in J. van der Auwera (ed.),EUROTYP Working Papers 5.2: Adverbs and Particles of Change and Continuation, European Science Foundation, pp. 17–41.

  • Chierchia, Gennaro and Sally McConnell-Ginet: 1990,Meaning and Grammar: An Introduction to Semantics, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comrie, Bernard: 1985,Tense, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoepelman, J. and Christian Rohrer: 1981, ‘Remarks onnoch andschon in German’, in J. Tedeschi and A. Zaenen (eds.),Syntax and Semantics 14: Tense and Aspect, Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, Laurence R.: 1970, ‘Ain't It Hard (Anymore)’,Papers from the 6th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, Chicago, pp. 318–327.

  • Jacobs, Joachim: 1983,Fokus und Skalen: Zur Syntax und Semantik der Gradpartikeln im Deutschen, Niemeyer, Tübingen.

    Google Scholar 

  • König, Ekkehard: 1977, ‘Temporal and Non-temporal Uses of ‘noch’ and ‘schon’ in German’,Linguistics and Philosophy 1, 173–198.

    Google Scholar 

  • Löbner, Sebastian: 1989, ‘Germanschon — erst — noch: An Integrated Analysis’,Linguistics and Philosophy 12, 167–212.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taglicht, Joseph: 1984,Message and Emphasis: On Focus and Scope in English, Longman, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Traugott, E. C. and J. Waterhouse: 1969, ‘Already’ and ‘yet’: A Suppletive Set of Aspect Markers',Journal of Linguistics 5, 287–304.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vandeweghe, Willy: 1979, ‘Perspectivity Operators in Dutch:al, nog, nog n,m’, in W. Vandeweghe and M. van de Valde (eds.),Bedeutung, Sprechakte und Texte, Niemeyer, Tübingen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vendler, Zeno: 1967,Linguistics in Philosophy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, Deirdre: 1975,Presupposition and Non-Truth-Conditional Semantics, Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Mittwoch, A. The relationship betweenschon/already andnoch/still: A reply to Löbner. Nat Lang Seman 2, 71–82 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01255432

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01255432

Navigation