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Modern English Only and If Only
focused item but to the entire proposition. It is signifi cant that one of the
three earliest examples of conjunctive only in the MED (see 13b), the earliest
example in the EModE section of the HC (see 19a), and seven of the sixteen
instances of conjunctive only in the King James Bible (see 19b, c) occur in
imperatives. Internal senses of conjunctive only also occur with imperatives
(see 19d, e):
(19) a. And all that moveth vppon the erth havynge lyfe, shall be youre
meate: Even as y e grene herbes, so geue I yow all thynge. Only the fl esh
with his life which is his bloud, se that ye eate not (1530 Tyndale, Bible
IX, 1G [HC])
b. And if the woman will not be willing to follow thee, then thou shalt be clear
from this my oath: only bring not my son thither again (1611 King James
Bible , Genesis 24.8)
c. For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an
ocassion to the fl esh, but by love serve one another (1611 King James Bible ,
Galatians 5.13)
d. But I shan’t put you to the trouble of farther Excuses, if you please this
Business shall rest here. Only give me leave to wish both for your Peace and
mine ... (1696 John Vanbrugh, The relapse I, 34 [HC])
e. But since you command, I obey: onely let me say thus much, ... (1590
Sidney, Arcadia 304 [Williams 1895 : 131])
I would suggest this position is the locus for change for the grammaticalization
of the focus adverb as a conjunction.
4.4 If Only
Unlike other conjunctive forms such as but , though , and so (see, e.g., Haselow
2013 ), only does not acquire a function as a freestanding pragmatic marker.
However, one use of only does seem to serve as a pragmatic marker, namely,
if only.
If only has a number of different uses. It may serve as the protasis of a
biclausal conditional structure – if only P, Q – which Dancygier and Sweetser
(2005: 211– 216) argue expresses a wish, or “the speaker’s negative epistemic
stance toward P and also ... the speaker’s positive interest in P.” Similarly,
Huddleston and Pullum note that this structure indicates “something like a
wish for the satisfaction of the condition” (2002: 751), and Quirk et al.
( 1985 : 1092) point out that as an intensifi ed version of if it is “typically used in
hypothetical clauses to express what the speaker wishes would happen, would
be happening, or would have happened”:
(20) a. If only I could work days, why, I’d be happy as a bird. (2012 Antioch Review
[COCA])