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bton.ac.uk>The ALL BUT construction In his message on the Linguist List (Vol 7-1559, 11 Nov 96), Enzo Di Giulio asked for information about the meaning of ALL BUT. One interesting question is whether this is a separate sense of BUT in English, or whether it is the same BUT that is more commonly used as a conjunction. The following thoughts might also be of interest because they show how translation data bring out generalisations about English that might not be so apparent in monolingual data. I'd be grateful for any comments. I am in the middle of a contrastive study of BUT in English versus MAIS in French, using a parallel (translation) corpus, the INTERSECT corpus. The data throw up some intriguing questions. (Accents are omitted from the French examples to make life simpler). ALL BUT: data The ALL BUT construction was rare in the corpus, with only five examples.In three cases, the translation was TOUT...SAUF: (1) On the subject of the assets of the DISK organisation and its affiliates, the Committee has taken note of the detailed information furnished by the Government and in particular of the disclosure therein of substantial increases in the total value of the liquid assets of ALL BUT one of these. (2) :: En ce qui concerne les biens et avoirs de la DISK et de ses affiliees, le comite prend note des renseignements detailles fournis par le gouvernement, et en particulier du fait que la valeur des avoirs liquides de TOUTES ces organisations a sensiblement augmente, SAUF pour l'une d'entre elles. (3) For ALL BUT the largest images, you can specify Portrait orientation. (4) :: Vous pouvez preciser l'orientation Portrait (a la francaise) pour TOUTES les images, SAUF les plus grandes. (5) For ALL BUT very large pages, you can specify Portrait orientation. (6) :: Vous pouvez preciser une orientation Portrait (a la francaise) pour TOUTES les pages, SAUF les plus grandes. It would appear from these examples that BUT in ALL BUT has the sense of "except". Some dictionaries (the Concise Oxford, for example) classify this BUT as a preposition, so the distinct sense of BUT would have a different word class from the conjunction as well as a different sense. There were also, however, two examples where ALL BUT has the sense of "nearly". In the first case, the translation was PRATIQUEMENT: (7) The value of Canada paper money plummeted. From 1759 on, British troops were also paid in specie, and paper money became ALL BUT valueless. (8) :: La valeur du papier-monnaie en usage au Canada a degringole. A partir de 1759, les troupes britanniques etaient elles aussi payees en espces; le papier-monnaie a PRATIQUEMENT perdu TOUTE valeur. In the second instance the translation does not attempt to render ALL BUT (unless you argue that the SE VOIR construction makes the impossibility slightly less certain and thus renders the sense of "nearly"): (9) I raised that question because of the way in which prices are soaring. Many small construction firms are finding it ALL BUT impossible to continue in business. (10) :: J'ai pose cette question en raison de la hausse acceleree des prix. De nombreuses petites entreprises de construction se voient dans l'impossibilite de rester en affaires. It is hard to argue that BUT is a preposition in (7) and (9). There is also an argument that BUT is not a preposition in the earlier examples. Normally a verb placed after a preposition in English must be in the gerund: (11) without paying, before signing, she insisted on leaving. The only exceptions are EXCEPT and BUT which take the bare infinitive (Thomson & Martinet 1986: 104): (12) I could do nothing but agree. Neg+BUT As well as occurring after universal quantifiers like ALL, this sense of BUT is found after negative expressions. In all six corpus examples, the French used NE..QUE: (13) The Government states that it had no option BUT to reject the call as it was in fact an accusation. (14) :: Le gouvernement souligne qu'il ne peut que rejeter cet appel etant donne qu'il constitute une accusation. (15) She wishes to reiterate that [...] transit or other facilities that depended on the will of a foreign state were nothing BUT expedients that masked the absence of a true solution to the problem. (16) :: Elle tient a reiterer que [...] des facilites de transit ou autres subordonnees a la volonte d'un etat etranger ne sont en fait que des expedients masquant l'absence d'une veritable solution du probleme. (17) Those controls have had nothing BUT negative results wherever they wre tried out. (18) :: Ces mesures de controle n'ont eu que des effets negatifs partout ou on en a fait essai. (19) [...] if the appropriate steps are followed the government has no alternative BUT to set up an agency in any way they desire. (20) :: [...] si on suit les mesures appropriees, le gouvernement n'a d'autre choix que de creer un organisme de la facon dont il entend. (21) As Minister of State for Urban affairs, if I do nothing else BUT succeed in passing this legislation through this house, [...] I will be very happy and proud of that. (22) :: A titre de ministre d'etat charge des affaires urbaines, si je ne reussissais qu'a faire adopter ce bill, [...] je serais tres heureux et fier de cette realisation. (23) [We need] a separate panel of the commission to deal with nothing else BUT the application and implementation of this legislation. (24) :: [Nous avons besoin d'] une section distincte de la commission chargee de rien d'autre que de l'application et de la mise en oeuvre de cette mesure legislative. Other types of example As well as these neg+BUT examples, there were two other types which are possibly relevant. The first type is CAN'T HELP BUT: (25) The collective punishments [...] COULD NOT HELP BUT seriously disturb the daily life of the Palestinian population. (26) :: Les chatiments collectifs [...] ne peuvent que perturber gravement la vie quotidienne des populations palestiniennes. (27) Mr. Hamadziripi (Zimbabwe) said that [...] the situation [...] was not consistent with the recommendations of CPC, and his delegation COULD therefore NOT HELP BUT be concerned. (28) :: M. Hamadziripi1 (Zimbabwe) note que [...] la situation [...] n'est pas conformed aux recommandations du CPC, ce qui ne manque pas d'inquieter la delegation de Zimbabwe. The second type has BUT on its own in the sense of "only": (29) ... the Bill [...] reflects but one element of many in our Canadian Citizenship act ... (30) :: ... le Bill [...] ne represente qu'un des nombreux elements de la loi sur la citoyennete canadienne ... (31) These, then are but a few examples involving Air Canada and safety at Dorval. (32) :: Ce ne sont la que quelques exemples concernant Air Canada et la securite a Dorval. Three of these examples (25-6), (29-30) and (31-31) use NE ... QUE just like the translations of the neg + BUT examples (13-24). This suggests that a key element in all these uses of BUT is something like "excluding some options and limiting attention to others". But if that is correct, then this sounds very close to the mainstream uses of conjunction BUT discussed, for instance, in Blakemore (1989): Rejection of expectation BUT: (33) John is a Republican, but he is honest Contrast BUT : (34) John is not a Republican, but a Democrat The question then arises why French MAIS can be used to translate BUT in (33) and (34) but not in the other examples presented here. Finally, a mention of the BUT FOR construction, which (annoyingly) didn't occur in the translation corpus, but for which there are some examples from a newspaper on CD: (35) From then on Arsenal seemed able to break Wimbledon down effortlessly, and BUT FOR profligate finishing might have got more goals. (36) London s FT-SE 100 index plunged 48.5 points and New York followed suit with a drop of 52, which could have been greater BUT FOR the intervention of Wall Street s crash-saving circuit breakers. (37) Duncan... said he would love it BUT FOR the fact that he was prevented by a bye-law. [12 to 14 are from The Independent] REFERENCES Blakemore, D. 1989. Denial and contrast: a relevance-theoretic analysis of BUT. Linguistics & Philosophy 12: 15-37. Dascal, M. & T. Katriel. 1977. Between semantics and pragmatics: the two types of BUT - Hebrew aval and ela . Theoretical Linguistics 4: 143-172. Souesme, J.-C. 1994. BUT, marqueur de passage de frontiere et ses traductions en francais. In. M. Ballard (ed.), Relations discursives et traduction, Lille, Presses Universitaires de Lille, pp. 157-186. Thomson, A. & A. Martinet. 1986. A practical English grammar (4th edn). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue