A Flexible Exclusive Operator: The Case of the Hebrew 'be-sax ha-kol' (? 'all in all')

Abstract

We offer a unified analysis of the Hebrew be-sax ha-kol (‘all in all’), according to which it is a scalar exclusive particle, under a modified definition of exclusives we develop. We claim that be-sax ha-kol differs from classical exclusives particles like only in that it is more flexible with respect to the set of alternatives to its prejacent. In particular, it can operate not only on “Roothian” alternatives to the prejacent, but also on different interpretational versions of the prejacent. We show how this proposal accounts for the fact that unlike only, be-sax ha-kol can trigger not only a clearly ‘exclusive’ reading, but also an ‘approximative’ one. We discuss the projective behavior of the prejacent of be-sax ha-kol in this reading, and the fact that it is infelicitous with L(ower)–scale adjectives.