0
CalifJim Posted 5 years ago
Grammar

'only' before a that-clause

A. We had been told only that something was wrong with her liver.

It looks like "only" is used for emphasizing "that something was wrong with her liver".

Q1) Like in A, can "only" be used for emphasizing "that-clause" in a sentence?

Q2) Is sentence A correct?

Q3) Without the word "only", is the meaning of sentence A changed?

fire1

  

Top answer

CalifJim It looks like "only" is used for emphasizing "that something was wrong with her liver". Yes. You can think of 'only' somewhat as a quantifier.

— CalifJim

  • CalifJim It looks like "only" is used for emphasizing "that something was wrong with her liver".
  • Yes.
  • You can think of 'only' somewhat as a quantifier.
  • The idea is "this, but not anything else".
  • We had been told only that something was wrong with her liver.
Free · every Monday

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.

2 Answers
0
CalifJimIt looks like "only" is used for emphasizing "that something was wrong with her liver".

Yes. You can think of 'only' somewhat as a quantifier. The idea is "this, but not anything else".

We had been told only that something was wrong with her liver.
~
We had not been told X. We had not been told Y. We

0
0

fire1

Unfortunately, our text editor sometimes gets terminally confused if you use double quotes (" ") in the header, so your post on this topic is unusable.

Therefore, I reposted it here.

CJ

0

Related Questions