2

I know "at all" in affirmative sentences is typically licensed by non-assertive words such as "any" and "if," but the following use of "at all" seems okay without those words:

John is grateful to have a job at all.

John is grateful that he has a job at all.

John is grateful that he found a job at all.

I am curious about how the "at all" is licensed.

Apollyon
  • 1,879

1 Answers1

1

It wouldn't be licensed without the surrounding "John is grateful..." clause.

The following is unacceptable or ungrammatical for me (so marked with a preceding asterisk * per common convention):

  • *John has a job at all.

It isn't completely unimaginable to me that an English speaker could produce the above sentence, but my expectation upon hearing or reading it would be that the speaker might also ignore licensing requirements for any other negative polarity items. (I've encountered a few people online who seem to have this as a habit; I think it may have originally been a deliberately unusual stylistic feature that some people adopted in adulthood.)

I feel that "ever" can also be licensed by grateful, as in "I'm grateful to have ever met you"/"grateful that I ever met you".

However, "any longer/any more" doesn't seem to be licensed: *"I'm grateful to have a job any more". I'm not sure why it is different from the other two NPIs mentioned.

herisson
  • 81,803
  • Surely the difference is that "at all" and to a lesser extent "ever" are positive NPIs whereas "any longer" and "any more" are negative ones. In order to license a negative NPI there needs to be negative context. Using the asterisk convention we have *"John is glad to have a job any more" (Positive licensing with a negative NPI, neither grammatical nor meaningful) as opposed to "John is glad not to have debt any more" (Negative licensing with a negative NPI, both grammatical and meaningful. – BoldBen Feb 25 '21 at 06:38
  • Is "John is glad to have a job at all" (or "John is glad he has a job at all") natural? – Apollyon Feb 25 '21 at 08:59
  • @Apollyon: Yes, as is "John is happy to have a job at all" – herisson Feb 25 '21 at 09:01
  • How about :John was angry that Peter had dropped a ball at all"? – Apollyon Feb 26 '21 at 08:29