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You don't even have a chance.
You don't have even a chance.
You even don't have a chance.
You had no chance. (where?)

Edwin Ashworth
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ESL
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  • answered at Does it matter where you put “only”? – Edwin Ashworth Dec 06 '13 at 23:00
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    @EdwinAshworth that's a different question. –  Dec 06 '13 at 23:03
  • Here, the limiting modifier 'even' can be put before 'you' in all cases. It doesn't make sense to use it elsewhere unless there is omitted context. With 'You don't have even a slight chance' a repositioning is possible: You don't even have a slight chance'. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 06 '13 at 23:05
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    there is a difference in meaning between the two sentences. the rule is to put even in the place that gives rise the meaning that you want. the first one you say if you mean that normally, people would at least have a chance, but in this case not. the second one you say if you mean that though you thought things were looking good for you, they are bad. in fact, so bad that you have no chance. –  Dec 06 '13 at 23:05
  • @jlovegren The answer given there applies here. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 06 '13 at 23:08
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    There's nothing wrong with "You don't even have a chance." (I'm somewhat baffled by the comment suggesting that it "doesn't make sense".) –  Dec 06 '13 at 23:19
  • @jlovegren So, 'Even you don't have a chance' has a completely different meaning, right? The person is more privileged, skilled or something, but even though he has no chance. – ESL Dec 06 '13 at 23:23
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    Yes, there is a rule. Even and only both focus on one word in the clause, and where they go depends on where that word is. – John Lawler Dec 06 '13 at 23:56
  • @snailboat 'You don't have a chance' says the same thing, and with no lessening of emphasis, as far as I can see. Note that I am, as my comment stated, discounting previous context, as none is given by the OP. Basically, a different example would be clearer, say * John * bought * more books. (* = even) – Edwin Ashworth Dec 07 '13 at 14:33
  • @John Lawler Surely they can focus on a whole predicate? Jane even painted the railings (ambiguous – as well as getting rid of the rust; as well as painting everything else; as well as doing all the other things). In spoken English, intonation would single out the intended sense. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 07 '13 at 14:44
  • Right. It goes unfortunately without saying often enough that this is a rule of the real living spoken language, rather than part of the jumble of medieval technologies that we call English orthography. In other words, the closer it is to its focus, the less ambiguity is likely in writing; that's the safe way. Unfortunately, it's often the awkward way, too, so you have to balance the effects, which is where the craft comes in. – John Lawler Dec 07 '13 at 18:40

2 Answers2

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Even is a scalar focus particle. It can have under its scope a noun phrase, verb, verb phrase, or some modifier of a noun phrase. The element under the scope of "even"-focus requires a certain intonation for the meaning to be properly understood.

Take a simple example sentence like:

Even you don't care.

We break the sentence down into subject/predicate form, so that P(...) stands for "don't care", and x stands for "you". P(x) is equivalent to "You don't care".

The meaning of "even" in the example is that, if you were to consider a variety of entities, a, b, c, ... of which it might potentially be said that P(a), P(b), P(c), ... (i.e., "Tom doesn't care", "Dick doesn't care", "Harry doesn't care"), and then we were to rank all such expressions in order of their likelihood/noteworthiness, or some salient property of interest, then P(x) would rank near the bottom of the scale.

In other words, "even you don't care" has two separate meanings:

  1. You don't care.
  2. Other people that we know about (e.g., Tom, Dick and Harry) might also not care, but that is not nearly as noteworthy as you not caring.

The explanation can be generalized for categories other than the subject.

Some examples of sentences with even and paraphrases (bolding indicates some suitable intonation contour that gives the intended meaning):

  • I even saw a canary/I saw even a canary. (I saw a canary AND there may have been other birds that I saw, but seeing a canary was more noteworthy than these)
  • I even saw a canary (I saw a canary AND there may have been other things that I did, but seeing a canary was more noteworthy than these)
  • I even saw a canary (I saw a canary AND though I may have perceived a canary in different ways (e.g., smelling, hearing), to see with my eyes was more noteworthy)

As for placement of even in a simple, positive declarative sentence, some general guidelines are:

  1. When even is used to put the subject in focus, it comes at the start of the sentence.
  2. When even is used to put some non-subject constituent in focus, it may come right after the subject, but intonation (and also context) is needed to disambiguate what exactly is under focus.
  3. In writing and colloquial speech, even can go right before the non-subject constituent being focused to avoid ambiguity (e.g., you can say "I saw even a canary" rather than "I even saw a canary")

In negative clauses, it matters whether even is placed to the left ("outside the scope of negation") or the right ("inside the scope of negation") of the negative word. In the first case, the negation is automatically interpreted as being part of the focus. In the second case the negation is not part of the focus. But the negation inverts the scale, as it were.

I didn't even see a canary.

means that "I didn't see a canary" and that there are few things less noteworthy to see than canaries (i.e., I saw little if anything of interest).

  • I'll tag on the intensifier, marking-out-as-special usage. In How do you even know that?, the scope of even is really the whole question; I'm really impressed that you know that is close in meaning. In How well the orchestra played – the violinist, the saxophonist, the horn player . . . the cellist even, the even often really means 'and certainly not forgetting' rather than 'surprise, surprise'. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 04 '15 at 12:15
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The word "even" here suggests that what comes after is one of a group, and more specifically, the last or least of that group. So if I "don't even have" a chance, it means that I don't have a chance, and I don't have a certainty, and I don't have anything in between. How terrible.

On the other hand, if I "even don't have a chance"... it means that I don't have a chance, and furthermore, that I have (or am, or do) several other things as well. This is an unusual turn of phrase, so it's hard to come up with a good example, but to me the feel of it is optimistic, or at least ironic.

"You don't know what's coming, don't care, and even don't have a chance of stopping it! Isn't blind fatalism great?"

Jander
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