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Modern English Only and If Only
(24) a. Maybe it’s the ghosts trying to get rid of you,” Joe suggested. A couple
dashed inside from the rain, and he turned to serve them. // “Yeah,” I mut-
tered. “ If only .” (2008 Hodge, Twist [COCA])
b. “What is this, some ’30s movie?” a character asks in this misbegotten
remake of George Cukor’s feline look at female friendship and rivalry. If
only. (2008 Movies, New York Times [COCA])
c. “Do you think so, your Eminence?” Galileo exclaimed, as if the idea had
never before occurred to him. As if? If only !” (2009 Analog Science Fiction
& Fact [COCA])
d. Most people were surprised that it wasn’t the creepy guy in the raincoat
who went online trolling for young girls. If only. In real life it was the
teacher, the doctor, the grandpa, the restaurant manager. (2008 Wiehl, Face
of betrayal [COCA])
e. “You’ve got to be kidding.” # “ If only! I spent my childhood thinking he must
be like the magician in the Nutcracker ballet – tall and skinny and forbidding,
yet somehow fascinating, too.” # (2011 Fantasy & Science Fiction [COCA])
f. Jane Fonda fl ings her typewriter (oh, if only !) out the window; (2014
New York Times [COCA])
For instance in (24a), the speaker is not wishing that the ghosts are trying to
get rid of him or her but rather suggesting that that is not the case. (24d), in
contrast, may be ambiguous between the reading that the speaker wishes those
trolling for young girls were “the creepy guy in the raincoat” and denying that
they are.
How do these uses of if only develop? The traditional view is that insub-
ordinated clauses develop from full biclausal structures (Evans 2007 ; Heine
2012 ; cf. Brinton 2014a , 2014b ).^25 Evans ( 2007 : 371– 375; 430– 431) argues
that an insubordinated clause begins as a subordinate clause with an overt main
clause. Ellipsis of the main clause ensues and ultimately the original subordi-
nate clause is fully nativized as a main clause and assumes pragmatic meaning.
The development involves four stages:
(1) subordinate construction with an overt main clause;
(2) ellipsis of the main clause;
(3) conventionalization of the ellipsis; and
(4) reanalysis as a main clause.
At stage (2), the clause can be treated as underlyingly subordinate, with the pos-
sibility of restoring a grammatically compatible main clause (Evans 2007 : 372,
430). There may still be syntactic evidence for the underlying main clause,
such as the presence of a negative polarity item like ever or any (e.g., That
25 Stirling says of insubordinated clauses that “their similarity to complete if- constructions with
similar functions indicates their origin and explains their meaning” (1999: 289), but she does
not explore their development in detail.