Lingua 83 (1991) 43-66.

North-Holland 43

Categories in the description ofjust

David A. Lee*
EnglishDepartment, University qf Queensland, St. Lucia 4072, Australia

Received July 1990; revised version November 1990

The fact that jusr is associated with a range of meanings (labelled depreciatory, restrictive,
specificatory and emphatic in a previous study) raises the question of whether the most
appropriate way of describing this situation is in terms of the concept of polysemy. Focus on
borderline cases suggests that an alternative model is to be preferred, in which meaning is seen as
the product of interaction between a relatively homogeneous just and features of context. These
include not only other semantic entities present in the utterance but also a considerable range of
pragmatic and cognitive factors involving the interpersonal dimension of the speech event and
alternative cognitive models applicable to situations falling within the scope of the adverb. The
discussion is relevant to issues concerning discreteness in linguistic description (Langacker 1987)
and the nature of linguistic categories (Lakoff 1987).

1. Introduction

Like many other discourse markers, the adverb just poses a number of
problems for a general theory of meaning. Of particular interest is the fact
that there are some sentences in which the adverb makes an important
contribution to the semantics of the sentence in which it occurs, whereas there
are other cases in which it seems to act simply as an exponent of speaker
attitude. Consider, for example, (1) and (2).

(1) It happened just before midnight.

(2) I just don’t like it. (uttered, say, in response to the question Why don’t
you buy it?)

If we compare each of these sentences with the corresponding sentence

without just, it is clear that the presence of the adverb in (1) and (2) has quite
a different effect in each case.
* I am most grateful to Rodney Huddleston for comments on a previous version of this paper.

0024-3841/91/$03.50 Q 1991 - Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland)

 (3) It happened before midnight.
(4) I don’t like it.

Examples (1) and (3) show that ,just contributes to propositional meaning in
that, if something happened at midday on the day in question, (I) would be
true but (3) false. On the other hand there are no situations in which (2) is
true but (4) false (assuming that (2) is uttered with relatively ‘neutral’
intonation). In (4) the function of just seems to be merely to downplay or
minimise the significance of the associated proposition (Brown and Levinson
1978: 181-182). In a previous study I distinguished here between a ‘specifica-
tory’ just in (1) and a ‘depreciatory’ just in (2) (Lee 1987). We will return to
these categories later.
The normal way of handling differences of this kind is, of course, to invoke
the notion of polysemy, suggesting that there are two distinct (but possibly
connected) meanings for the same word. The notion of polysemy, however,
raises a number of difficult issues. One obvious question is how the hearer
knows which interpretation to assign in a particular case. How does the
hearer know that (2), for example (when spoken with neutral intonation).
does not mean ‘I marginally don’t like it’ (i.e. ‘I don’t like it but my failure to
like it is so marginal that I almost like it’). The answer to this question may
be that just is associated with different readings in these two sentences not
because it ‘has’ a different meaning in each case but because of the nature of
the elements with which it interacts. In other words, it may be that the
concept ‘before midnight’ in (1) contains certain semantic features that
interact with just to produce the concept of marginality, whereas it is the
absence of these features in I like it that fails to produce this reading in (2)
(or, at least makes another reading more salient). This hypothesis differs
substantially from an approach based on polysemy, since the latter notion
ties specific semantic features to individual items, attributing the concept of
marginality to the just of (1) but not to that of (2), rather than to the
interaction between a possibly homogeneous item and surrounding elements.
The hypothesis raises the question of what semantic features are in fact
relevant to the emergence of one reading or another in such cases.
The concept of polysemy. moreover, is part of a more general theory of
meaning that is open to serious question. This theory suggests that the
meaning of a sentence is a summation of the meanings of the component
elements. On this view the meaning of (1) but not that of (2) ‘contains’ the
concept of marginality because (1) contains a particular kind ofju.vt, whereas
(2) contains another kind. This theory can be questioned at a number of
 D.A. Lee / Categories of just 45

levels. At a very basic level, as we have noted, it does not explain how the
hearer assigns the appropriate interpretation in a particular case. Nor does it
explain why the item in question has the particular range of meanings that it
has. This in fact is a general problem with the notion of polysemy. Polysemy
is standardly distinguished from homonymy in that the latter term is applied
to cases where the fact that an item has two or more distinct meanings is
clearly fortuitous (e.g. hank for a ‘financial institution’ and ‘the side of a
river’). The notion of polysemy, on the other hand, is applied to situations
where there is clearly some motivation for the different meanings of an item
(e.g. the fact that glass can be used to refer to (a) a material (It’s made of
glass), (b) a container made out of that material (I’ve just broken u glass), (c)
the contents of such a container (he drunk the wlhole glass), (d) a barometer
(the glass is fulling). Yet polysemy does nothing to explicate the nature of
these relationships, treating them for all practical purposes as distinct mean-
ings. At a more general level, the theory can be characterised as part of what
has been referred to as the ‘conduit metaphor’ or ‘container view’ of
communication (Reddy 1979; Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 1 l-13; Moore and
Carling 1982: 149-175). According to this view language is a vehicle for
transferring meanings from speakers to hearers in such a way that texts can
be regarded as ‘containing’ the meanings that are derived from the lexical and
grammatical properties of sentences. The container view has been challenged
in a wide spectrum of recent work, ranging from the ethnography of
communication to cognitive grammar (Gumperz 1982: 153; Lakoff 1987: 67-
74; Langacker 1987: 161-166). It is a characteristic of alternatives to the
container view that they focus on the way in which meaning is produced by
the interaction between language and other elements of context, such as
cognitive models or cultural assumptions and norms of interpretation. In this
paper, we will be concerned to contribute to this debate by focusing on the
wide range of interactional processes that come into play in the interpretation
of just.
One obvious difference between the just of (1) and that of (2) is that the
former can be replaced by adverbs such as marginally, slightly, fructionulll~,
whereas the latter cannot. At first sight it may seem that this observation
reinforces the traditional theory of meaning indicated above, since if
words such as these ‘contain’ the concept of marginality, why should we
question the suggestion that the just which they can be used to
paraphrase also contains such a meaning? One reason why such an assump-
tion proves to be questionable is that it is based on the following doubtful
principle :
 If a word x can be replaced without any change in meaning by _r in certain
sentences (but not by z) and by z in others (but not by J), then there must
be two meanings of X, one of which is synonymous with y, the other with z.

As an illustration of the problematic nature of this principle. consider (5)

(5) I’ve just finished the book.

It is clearly not possible to substitute adverbs such as marginal/~,, slightl~~,

fractionally for,just in this sentence with any degree of naturalness. The word
that would suggest itself, rather, is recently. ~ an item that is not substitutable
in (1). If the principle indicated above were reliable, we ought to have two
distinct meanings for just in (1) and (5). Yet I would argue that this is not so.
In just before midnight the function of the adverb is to focus on a particular
sub-part of the period ‘before midnight’ (designated in my previous study
(1987: 91) as the ‘marginal phase’). The present perfect also identifies a
particular period of time (a period in the past leading up to and including the
present moment of utterance (Bauer 1970)) and again the function ofjust in
the have just construction is to focus on the marginal phase of this period,
immediately preceding the moment of utterance. In other words, in spite of
the fact that quite different items are needed to paraphrase,just in (1) and (5).
we are not really dealing with two distinct meanings here. Rather the different
readings are produced by the nature of the entities with which ,ju.rt interacts.
Other cases of this kind could easily be cited (see for example Lee 1987: 91).
This suggests that the paraphrase test is not a satisfactory tool for investigat-
ing the semantics of the adverb and that it would be unwise to base any
theoretical claims on it. The examples suggest rather that just may in fact be
distinct from marginall_v, slightly, ,fractionally on the one hand and from
recently on the other and that, if it produces meanings in certain contexts that
are similar to those produced by these other adverbs, this may have as much
to do with the relevant contexts as withJust itself.
In the following discussion I will in fact continue to use such locutions as
‘the specificatory just’, ‘the depreciatory just and so on as a convenient
shorthand for referring to the various meanings produced by the adverb in
specific contexts. Clearly, however, in the light of the preceding discussion.
these expressions should not be taken to mean that the readings in question
are a property of the adverb itself.
The main aim of my previous study was to identify a semantic spectrum
involving four main types of meaning, which I designated as ‘restrictive’,
 D.A. Lee / Categories ofjust 41

‘depreciatory’, ‘specificatory’ and ‘emphatic’. There too I argued that the

meanings in question were not to be seen as polysemous but that they should
be regarded as emerging from interactional processes of the kind indicated
above. In that study I attempted to make a preliminary investigation into the
semantic factors that cause one or another category of meaning to emerge in
a particular utterance. Although my main concern was to establish the four
categories as relatively discrete types of meaning, I also noted that there were
cases where the distinctions between the relevant semantic categories were
blurred. In the present study we will focus on these borderline cases, since
these can make an important contribution to our understanding of the factors
involved in the production of the relevant meanings. Clearly, if the general
hypothesis is correct that the meanings in question are the product of
interactional processes, then it ought to be possible to identify in the
borderline cases semantic elements (or other relevant factors) that connect
them to the unambiguous cases. That is, if meaning-type A results from the
interaction between just and context X and meaning-type B results from the
interaction between just and context Y, then contexts that are ambiguous or
indeterminate with respect to meaning-types A and B ought to share features
with both context X and Y. We will attempt to test this hypothesis in the
following discussion, which divides into four sections, each concerned with a
particular borderline situation. The present study, therefore, aims to extend
and develop the approach outlined in Lee 1987. I will propose one minor
modification to the model adopted in the earlier study (introducing an extra
meaning category) and consider further some of the general implications of
the analysis.

2. Depreciatory and specificatory

We will begin with the distinction between the specificatory and deprecia-
tory meanings exemplified by (1) and (2) respectively. The two readings differ
in a number of ways. The main semantic difference, as we have noted, is that
the specificatoryjust makes a contribution to the propositional content of the
sentence, producing the concept of marginality. The depreciatory just, on the
other hand, functions as an exponent of speaker attitude. The latter is
relatively unrestricted in terms of its distribution, since practically any
situation can be subject to downtoning. In the kind of data discussed in Lee
1987 (extracts from doctor-patient interviews) the depreciatory just was used
by patients to minimise the significance of their statements, particularly when
describing their symptoms. It was also used by doctors to downplay their
utterances and actions, mainly with the aim of reassuring patients. Doctors
also used it to minimise (or ‘modalise’) directives. The very general distribu-
tion of the depreciatoryjust suggests that it is in some sense the ‘unmarked’
use. This is also indicated by the fact that the depreciatory .jusr tends to be
associated with neutral intonation, whereas an intonation focus on the adverb
tends to produce some other reading. If we think of the set of meanings
associated with just as members of a radially structured category (Lakoff
1987: 91) then the depreciatory just is a candidate for the core area of the
category.
The specificatoryjust occurs in such sentences as (6)-(9).

(6) He left just before midnight.

(7) It hurts just below my elbow.
(8) He just missed the bus.
(9) He just missed the target.

In Lee 1987 I argued that the defining characteristic of the set of situations
that come within the scope of the specificatory,just is the fact that they are
sharply specified at one end of their semantic range but imprecisely specified
at the other (Langacker’s concepts of ‘bounding’ (1987: 151) and ‘profiling’
(1987: 246) are relevant here). For example. the period of time identified by
the expression hefore midnight extends indefinitely into the past but ends
precisely at twelve. Similarly the location identified by h&ic~ nz~’ c/ho~, is
sharply specified in the area close to and below the elbow but imprecisely
bounded as one moves along the arm away from the elbow. The claim was
that such situations contain a ‘marginal phase’, comprising a part of the
semantic range of the concept close to the sharply specified boundary. The
function of the specificatoryjusr is to focus on that marginal phase. Whereas
the concept of marginality is interpreted in temporal terms in (6) and (8), in
(7) and (9) it is interpreted locatively. Clearly this distinction between a
temporal and a locative reading is not part of the meaning of ,jus/ itself. l
These differences derive from the semantic character of the elements with
which just enters into construction.
Since the marginal reading of .just is a specialised meaning, apparently
distinguished quite clearly from the meaning of downtoning associated with
the depreciatory reading and emergent in the context of a well-defined set of
1 The view that the meaning of the kind of jusr cited here contains temporal features has been
expressed, for example, by Quirk et al. (1972: 483). For discussion see Lee (1987: 92-93).
 D.A. Lee : Categories of just 49

concepts, we might expect there to be no examples where this reading fuses

with the depreciatory. If this were the case, the situation would lend itself to a
description in terms of polysemy. However, there are cases where the boun-
dary between the specificatory reading and the depreciatory reading is in fact
quite problematic. Consider the following example.

(10) A: Will you be long? I’m tired and I’d like the light out.
B: No, I’m just finishing this page.

It would be extremely difficult to disentangle the specificatory and deprecia-

tory readings here. If we focus on the semantics of the sentence, the primary
meaning is specificatory - ‘I am on the verge of finishing this page’. However,
if we consider the utterance in functional or interactional terms, it is clearly
addressed to the directive intent of A’s utterance, indicating that B will not
immediately comply with A’s request to turn out the light but will do so in
the near future. Interpreted in these terms, the function ofjust is to modalise
B’s refusal and is therefore more appropriately interpreted as depreciatory.
This point can in fact be generalised. Since the concept of marginality can
itself be oriented to the expression of interpersonal meaning, indeterminacy
between the specificatory and depreciatory readings tends to arise when just
enters into construction with an element comprising a marginal phase in a
situation in which an utterance constitutes a potential threat to the addres-
see’s face (Goffman 1967; Brown and Levinson 1978: 66). Typical examples
of this occur when speakers refuse to comply with suggestions or directives or
when they contradict previous assertions or implicatures. The following
exchange between a doctor and patient cited in my previous study (1987: 94)
provides a slightly different kind of illustration of the first case from the one
given above.

(11) D: Was there anything else?

P: Oh, I was just going to talk about my husband.

The doctor’s utterance clearly constitutes a pre-closing move (Schegloff and

Sacks 1973) but the patient’s Oh indicates that this takes her somewhat by
surprise and that she is in fact not yet ready to cooperate in terminating the
consultation. Her use ofjust is therefore indeterminate between the specifica-
tory reading (‘I was on the verge of talking about my husband’) and the
depreciatory reading, the latter associated with the fact that it minimises her
refusal to comply with the doctor’s move. This indeterminacy arises because
50 D.A. Lee i Categories of just

the concept of marginality itself is being harnessed here to the expression of

interpersonal meaning. Her statement to the effect that she was on the verge
of talking about her husband but had not in fact begun to do so signals her
acknowledgement of the fact that a particular phase of the consultation had
come to an end and that the doctor’s attempted closure was therefore quite
legitimate. The presence ofjust here may also carry some suggestion that the
opening up of a new topic is a relatively trivial move on her part, so that the
possible threat to the doctor’s negative face is insignificant.
The second type of situation indicated above in which the boundary
between the depreciatory and specificatory tends to blur typically occurs
when a speaker contradicts an interlocutor’s previous statement or associated
implicature, as in (12).

(12) A: I can’t make up my mind what to do.

B: Jack thinks you should sell it.
A: Mm, he just may not be right this time.

Here B’s utterance not only informs A about the nature of Jack’s views but
also tends to carry the pragmatic implicature that Jack’s opinion is a
significant factor in the situation and therefore deserves to be acted upon. A’s
reaction is to acknowledge this point with a form of words suggesting that
she would normally accept this implicature but indicating that on this
particular occasion the appropriate basis for doing so may not obtain. Again
the recognition that this is a marginal possibility not only contributes to the
propositional content of A’s utterance but also has an important functional
role in softening her refusal to accept B’s implicature.
The concept of polysemy does not seem appropriate in cases like those
illustrated above in that it forces a choice between the candidate readings,
whereas they can both be seen as operating simultaneously and inseparably.
More generally, Langacker’s (1987: 28) discussion of the ‘exclusionary fal-
lacy’ seems apposite here.

‘The gist of this fallacy is that one analysis, motivation, categorization, cause, function, or
explanation for a linguistic phenomenon necessarily precludes another. From a broad. pre-
theoretical perspective, this assumption is gratuitous and in fact rather dubious, in view of
what we know about the multiplicity of interacting synchronic and diachronic factors that
determine the shape and import of linguistic expressions.’

In the interactionist model of meaning outlined in the introduction three

questions arise out of these observations. The first is why the marginal
 D.A. Lee / Categories ofjust 51

reading emerges in some sentences, the depreciatory reading in others. The

second question is why the apparently clear boundary between these readings
becomes blurred in certain cases. The third question is why just can produce
the particular range of observed meanings.
We have already outlined an answer to the first question. The marginal
reading emerges when just interacts with a semantic concept that is in some
sense sharply specified at one end of its range, but imprecisely specified at the
other. The depreciatory reading, on the other hand, tends to emerge when no
such entity is contextually present, particularly in an interpersonal context in
which questions of ‘face’ are in play (there are few interactions where this is
not the case). As far as the second question is concerned, this hypothesis
suggests that the boundary will blur when the context in which just
occurs both contains a concept characterised by a marginal phase and also
involves processes oriented to the preservation of ‘face’, particularly when the
concept of marginality itself engages in processes of minimisation and mod-
alisation.
These observations also provide the outline of an answer to the third
question indicated above - the question of why just produces the particular
range of meanings that we observe. Common to both the depreciatory and
specificatory readings is the notion of restriction. The main difference is the
fact that in the case of the depreciatory reading this notion is applied to the
area of interpersonal meaning, specifically to what Halliday (1976: 28) calls
‘modality’, so that the associated proposition is interpreted as having restric-
ted significance in the eyes of the speaker. In the case of the specificatory
reading, on the other hand, the notion of restriction participates in the
production of propositional meaning in that it involves focus on a sub-part of
the situation governed by just. The depreciatory reading also tends to govern
the entire associated proposition, whereas the specificatory reading tends to
emerge in interaction with a specific participant in propositional meaning ~
e.g. elements such as ‘before midnight’, ‘below the elbow’ or perfect aspect.
Clearly, however, the fact that the notion of restriction is common to all these
cases provides some explanation of why it is that the adverb can engage in the
production of these specific types of meaning: depreciatory and specificatory.
In terms of Lakoff s (1987: 96) theory of categories, these factors provide the
motivation for the structure of the category - they constitute the substance of
the connecting strands that ‘chain’ the various members of the category to
each other.
3. Depreciatory and emphatic

A third type ofjust identified in Lee 1987 is the emphaticjusr, as illustrated

in examples (13))( 16) :

(13) He just infuriated everyone.

(14) He is just amazing.
(15) The performance was just dazzling.
(16) She just terrorises her students.

In such examples the meaning expressed by the adverb appears to be in

complete contrast to that expressed by the depreciatory just and again the
question of whether the case should be treated as one involving polysemy
arises.2 If we adopt the alternative view, that meaning is an emergent
property deriving from interactive processes, we can see the emphatic reading
in (13))(16) as deriving from the fact that the concepts with which just enters
into construction are marked by strong ‘affect’ ~ e.g. by features such as
intense anger, admiration, fear. 3
The fact that the emphatic just expresses a meaning that is for all practical
purposes diametrically opposed to the depreciatory just suggests quite
strongly at first sight that we are dealing here with a case of polysemy, if not
indeed homonymy. Again, however, there are a number of considerations
indicating that the kind of interactionist model of meaning indicated above is
to be preferred. As before, the point has to do with the existence of borderline
cases. Consider such examples as (17)-( 19):

(17) He just didn’t listen.

(18) He just wasn’t paying attention.
(19) He just hasn’t done a thing.

The question of whether we regard these as cases of the depreciatory or

emphatic reading (or as indeterminate between them) depends to a large
extent on the accompanying intonational and paralinguistic features. If the

2 This is essentially the way in which Quirk et al. (1985: 584) treat the item. They exemplify the
emphatic just quite separately from the other types. except that they do note (p. 581) a close
relationship between the just that is used for ‘focusing and intensification’ and other types.
3 Note that the emphatic reading does not emerge unless the affective features concerned are
relatively intense. That is, the jusr occurring in He just annoyed everyone, He just surpri.wd us ~11,
He just makes us @aid is not emphatic.
 D.A. Lee / Caiegories of just 53

utterance is produced with minimal pitch range, a low-falling terminal

contour, low energy (also perhaps accompanied by dismissive body language
such as a shrug of the shoulders), we would be inclined to assign just to the
depreciatory category. If it is produced with wide pitch range, a high falling
terminal contour, marked intonation focus on just and on the terminal, the
emphatic reading would seem more appropriate. This is particularly true if
there are other features present containing strong affect, e.g. he just didn’t
listen to a single word I said, he just hasn’t done a damn thing. The significant
point here is that we are not dealing in these cases with situations involving a
clear choice between one reading and the other (i.e. with the kind of situation
which the concept of polysemy is designed to handle). The fact that the kind
of prosodic and paralinguistic features involved here are gradient phenomena
means that there can be no clear boundary between the two readings - that
there is inevitably an intermediate range involving indeterminacy. It is, then,
the fact of this indeterminacy together with the fact that meaning is clearly in
this case a product of interactional processes that constitute the evidence for
the interactionist case - that the relevant meanings are as much the product
of the elements of context as of just itself.4
Another situation illustrating this point involves the interaction between
just and the modal auxiliaries. Consider first the negative epistemic expres-
sions may not, won’t and can’t:

(20) He just may not have seen us.

(21) He just won’t have seen us.
(22) He just can’t have seen us.

These examples illustrate a scale of epistemic strength ranging from weak

(may) to strong (can’t). In combination with may, the weakest exponent of
epistemic modality, just has the depreciatory rather than the emphatic
reading. s In combination with the stronger won’t, its effect also seems to be
depreciatory. With can’t, it is much more difficult to decide whether we have
the depreciatory or the emphatic reading. The former is certainly possible (he
4 Just is not alone in having both a downtoning and an emphatic function - the same applies to
quite (quite interesting VS. quife amazing (Rodney Huddleston, personal communication).
5 Epistemic may also collocates with the specificatory just (see example (12)) but this is not
relevant to the point at issue. Rodney Huddleston has pointed out to me that the position of
won? on the scale of epistemic strength is in fact interesting and problematic. Won’l p is like can’t
p in excluding altogether the possibility of p, as illustrated by the contradiction in She won’t have
read it, though it’s just/also possible that she has. The interaction with just suggests that the
perceived relative weakness of will/won’/ is pragmatic rather than semantic.
54 D.A. Lw : Culqories ofjust

just can’t have seen us, that’s all) but the emphatic reading is perhaps the more
salient one, particularly if the function of the utterance is to contradict a
previous assertion of the addressee. Clearly in addition to the kind of
intonational and paralinguistic factors discussed above the epistemic strength
of the modal is also a factor in determining where a particular token ofjust
will situate itself on the depreciatory-emphatic continuum. It is clearly
impossible to account for the gradient nature of the phenomena observed
here if we treat the depreciatory and emphatic readings as entirely discrete.
The same kind of indeterminacy occurs when just collocates with the root
modals will, can and must in negative structures. In (23)-(25) the most salient
reading is emphatic, owing to the presence of relatively strong affective
features.

(23) He just won’t lift a finger.

(24) He just can’t do anything right.
(25) He just mustn’t be allowed to get away with it.

In other cases, however, the relative absence of strong affective features in the
associated situation considerably weakens the emphatic force of just.

(26) He just won’t do it, unfortunately.

(27) He just can’t help it, I’m afraid.
(28) He just mustn’t do anything energetic for a few days.

Given this kind of data, it would be extremely difficult to argue against the
view that there is a continuum here, containing a relatively large area of
indeterminacy.
What is the motivation (in Lakoffs sense) for this rather surprising
connection between the depreciatory and the emphatic just? Again the main
factor appears to have to do with the notion of restriction. The role of this
concept in the depreciatory function is clear. As far as the emphatic meaning
is concerned, the interactionist approach suggests that, when this notion
enters into interaction with elements carrying strong affect, the incompatibil-
ity of this property with the depreciatory meaning causes a different reading
to emerge. But why does it produce an emphatic reading? This seems to
derive from the fact that the combination of the notion of restriction with
strong affect produces meanings which involve focus on the latter, so that
meanings involving intensification and highlighting are produced. We will
return to this point in the following section, since it establishes a connection
 D.A. Lee 1 Categories of just 55

not only between the depreciatory and emphatic just but also between the
latter and what we will call the ‘intensificatory’ reading. This observation will
suggest that the internal structure of the jusr category is somewhat more
complex than I suggested in my earlier article, where I indicated (p. 97) a
relatively simple linear model (or spectrum) in which each type of just was
connected only with the category adjacent to it in the linear spectrum
(depreciatory-restrictive-specificatory-emphatic).

4. Specificatory and emphatic

The relationship between the specificatory and the emphatic readings is a

particularly complex one. We noted above that the specificatory reading
emerges when just interacts with expressions denoting situations characterised
by the fact that the relevant semantic range is precisely specified (or bounded)
at one extreme but imprecisely specified at the other. On this view the
function of just is to pick out a sub-part of that semantic range which is close
to the sharply specified end of the range. This sub-part is identified as the
‘marginal phase’ of the process.
This analysis tends to obscure a difference between two contrasting types
of situation. So far we have taken examples such as (6)-(9) repeated here as
(29)-(32), to illustrate the specificatory category.

(29) He left just before midnight.

(30) It hurts just below my elbow.
(31) He just missed the bus.
(32) He just missed the target.

Here the specificatory just produces a truly marginal reading. The situation is
realised marginally in the sense that the contrary situation almost applies:
‘just before midnight’, for example, is situated marginally on one side of the
boundary dividing ‘before midnight’ from ‘after midnight’. In more general
terms, the specificatory just in these examples identifies a situation in which
the relevant truth conditions are on the verge of inapplicability.
Consider, however, examples such as (33)-(34):

(33) The shop is just near the bank.

(34) Jo was standing just at the corner.
56 D.A. Lee / Categories ofjust

There are good grounds for assigning these examples to the specificatory
category, if we accept the definition of this element given above. The concept
‘near the bank’ is clearly loosely specified at one extreme of its semantic range
in the sense that as one moves away from the bank in physical space, there is
no precise point at which one could no longer be said to be near the bank’.
At the other extreme, there is a sharply specified boundary in the sense that
total physical proximity to the bank defines the limit of the application of the
concept ‘near the bank’. Just in (33) identifies a sub-part of this range close to
this latter limit. There are, however, clearly differences between the meanings
resulting from the interaction of just with the concepts in (29))(32) and the
corresponding interactions in (33))(34). The expression just new the hunk
does not identify a situation in which the concept ‘near the bank’ is realised in
a marginal phase. On the contrary, the focus here is on a particularly intense
manifestation of the situation in question. The relevant truth conditions are
not on the verge of inapplicability. Another concept which produces the same
intensificatory kind of meaning in interaction with just is the concept of
similarity (SW is just like her mother), since this concept too is ‘saliently
bounded at only one extreme, that of identity, i.e. full coincidence with the
standard of comparison (Langacker 1987 : 15 1). 6
One way of accounting for these observations might be to reject the
definition of the specificatory category outlined above and to assign just in
just near the bunk to the emphatic category, confining the specificatory
category (perhaps renamed ‘the marginal just’) to examples such as those in
(29))(32). On this analysis, the just that occurs in just new the bank belongs in
the same sub-class as the just of (13))( 16) repeated here as (35))(38):

(35) He just infuriated everyone.

(36) He is just amazing.
(37) The performance was just dazzling.
(38) She just terrorises her students.

This solution does not seem entirely satisfactory, however. It fails to capture
the fact that the concept of a sharply defined boundary plays a role in the
d It is interesting to note that just does not produce this reading in examples like Sue ju.s/
resembles her mother or Sue is just similar to her mother. This suggests that the concept designated
by like in English differs from that designated by resembk and .similarin terms of its ‘bounding’
characteristics (Langacker 1987: 151). The concepts of ‘resemble’ and ‘similar’ appear to be
bounded at some distance from the concept of identity - that is, there is some element of
opposition or disjunction between these concepts and that of identity whereas ‘like’ is bounded
at the extreme of ‘full coincidence with the standard of comparison’.
 D.A. Lee 1 Categories of just 51

interpretation of (33)-(34) but not in (35)-(38). In the latter set the semantic
range denoted by such predicates as infuriate, amaze, dazzle, terrorise appears
relatively uniform, so that it seems inappropriate to suggest that in (35))(38)
just picks out a sub-part of the relevant semantic range in which the concept
is manifested in a particularly salient or intense phase. A better solution
seems to be to replace the original two categories with three: marginal (‘just
before midnight’), intensificatory (‘just near the bank’) and emphatic (‘just
infuriated everyone’). For the remainder of this paper we will adopt this
position in order to continue to focus on our main concern ~ the indeter-
minate nature of the boundaries between these categories,
We have noted that the question of whether just produces the marginal or
the intensificatory reading seems to depend on whether that part of the
semantic spectrum close to the sharply specified boundary represents a
condition verging on its corresponding negative or whether it represents a
particularly salient manifestation of the situation in question. Given the
nature of our argument, we would expect indeterminacy to arise in those
cases where there are alternative ways of conceptualising a situation in these
terms. Consider (39) as a case in point:

(39) I was just about to leave.

The indeterminacy between the marginal and intensificatory readings that can
be observed here derives from the fact that there are two different ways of
conceptualising the situation. On one view ‘about to leave’ is a condition
which gradually intensifies as it develops through chronological time until it
reaches a particularly intense phase. The act of leaving is thought of as the
culmination or climax of the condition and therefore as part of it. This view
gives rise to an intensificatory interpretation for just. Another way of
thinking about the situation is to see it as a relatively homogeneous condition
which abruptly ceases to apply at the moment of leaving. This view, facilitated
by the fact that the situation, by its very nature, extends only over a short
period of time, effectively separates the moment of departure from the
condition of being about to leave. On this view just has a marginal reading.
The important point is that, for any given utterance of this sentence, it is not
a question of having to choose between the two readings. It seems much more
satisfactory to see the example as a case of indeterminacy, noting once again
Langacker’s exclusionary fallacy.
A particular property of (39) is that the concept of marginality is indepen-
dently present in the concept ‘about to leave’, so that in this case the
indeterminate nature of the example could be seen as deriving from the
interaction between the specificatory ,just and this element. There are, how-
ever, many situations which can be conceptualised in either of the two ways
indicated above. Consider the concept ‘above x’ as instantiated in (40))(41):

(40) The pipe projected just above the roof.

(41) The helicopter hovered just above the roof.

In (40) the concept of marginality is undoubtedly the most salient one,

whereas this is much less obviously the case in (41). This difference appears to
derive from the fact that, in processing (40) and (41). we are operating within
different domains (Langacker 1987: 63, 117) in each case. In (40) it is natural
to construe the relevant domain as including the area below the roof as well
as the area above it (given our knowledge of the general relationship between
pipes and roofs), in precisely the same way that we construe ‘just before
midnight’ in terms of a time period that extends on both sides of the temporal
boundary. Since the main focus is the domain of interpretation here is the
oppositional relationship between the internally undifferentiated areas ‘above
the roof and ‘below the roof, just produces the marginal interpretation. In
(41), on the other hand, our knowledge of the real world behaviour of
helicopters in relation to roofs identifies a different domain of interpretation.
Here the focus is not on the oppositional relationship between ‘above’ and
‘below’ but specifically on the general area ‘above the roof in te.rms of how a
helicopter might be positioned within this space. This construal produces a
way of conceptualising the space in terms of differential degrees of intensity
of manifestation, with the area close to the roof (the sharply specified
boundary of the domain) as constituting the most salient, the most intense
area of manifestation. In specifying this area just creates an intensificatory
rather than a marginal reading. A similar contrast applies to pairs such as
(42) and (43):

(42) The ball landed just outside the line.

(43) The car stopped just outside the bank.

In (42) it is the marginal reading that is most salient because the domain of
interpretation includes inside as well as outside the line, so that there is a
sharply demarcated boundary between opposing areas. In (43). on the other
hand, since we are not accustomed to thinking of cars stopping inside banks,
it is not natural to include this area within the domain of interpretation. In
 D.A. Lee / Categories of just 59

this context, the area ‘outside the bank’ is one that is realised in terms of
varying degrees of manifestation and just produces the intensificatory read-
ing.
The intensificatory category strengthens the nature of the connecting
strands between the various other categories postulated here. In both the
specificatory and intensificatory usage, the notion of restriction focuses on a
particular sub-phase of some situation. In the former case the phase in
question borders on the boundary at which the concept ceases to apply; in
the other case it is located close to the situation in which the concept achieves
total realisation. In this latter case the fact that the notion of restriction can
produce meanings concerned with focusing and emphasis establishes a clear
link with the emphatic just discussed in the previous section, although there
are also certain differences between the intensificatory and the emphatic
function. The notion of restriction is therefore the common factor tying each
of these elements together, the differences between them resulting from the
differential nature of the interactions with elements in the surrounding
context.

5. Depreciatory and restrictive

In previous sections of this paper I have attempted to establish the

existence of borderline areas between types of meaning associated with just
that were clearly different from each other and to explore the interactional
processes involved in the production of these readings. In this section the
argument is somewhat different, in that it is concerned with a distinction
(between the depreciatory and restrictive readings) that is much more proble-
matic than those discussed above. The main aim of this section, therefore,
will be to attempt to justify the distinction in question. The fact that
interactional processes figure prominently in this argument, however, lends
further support to the model adopted here.
In my previous study I argued (1987: 87) that there is a distinction between
a depreciatory and a restrictive reading such that the depreciatory just is a
speaker modality expressing attitudinal meaning, whereas the restrictive
reading, like the specificatory reading, is more closely integrated into the
semantics of the associated proposition. The depreciatory reading has been
illustrated at (2) above - it also occurs in (44)-(46) from the corpus referred
to in Lee (1987):
 (44) No it’s not a shortage of breath. it’s just a kind of terribly tired
feeling.
(45) I don’t feel unwell, I just feel seedy.
(46) That’s not serious, it’s just a cyst.

The restrictive reading is exemplified in (47) and (48):

(47) I just notice it at night.

(48) Just in one heel it lifted but not its back in both.

One of the reasons advanced in the previous study for distinguishing between
these types was that thejust of (47) and (48) is involved in the construction of
entailments, whereas the just of (44))(46) is not. In relation to (47). for
example, consider the corresponding sentence without just:

(49) I notice it at night.

If we compare (47) with (49) then we observe that (47) entails the proposition
‘It is not the case that I notice it at all times’ whereas (49) does not.’ On the
other hand. it is difficult to identify propositions that are entailed by
sentences containing the jusr of (44))(46) but not entailed by the correspond-
ing sentences without it. It’s just a cyst and if’s a c~lst, for example, do not
seem to contrast in the same way.
It is not at all obvious, however, how this distinction is to be accounted for
within the interactionist model of meaning developed in this paper. What arc
the factors that differentiate examples (44))(46) from (47))(48). so that one
type of meaning emerges in the first set, whereas another meaning emerges in
the second?
Before we attempt to address this question, let me consider another piece of
evidence that appears to support this somewhat controversial distinction
between a depreciatory and a restrictive reading. The relevant evidence
concerns the interaction between just and negation in examples such as (50)
and (51):

(50) He just didn’t wait.

(51) He didn’t just wait.

Whereas (50) means ‘it is simply the case that he didn’t wait’ (depreciatory),
7 Example (49) may, of course. carry this implicature.
 D.A. Lee / Categories cf just 61

(51) means ‘his activity was not confined to waiting’ (restrictive). Crucial to
this distinction is the phenomenon of ‘scope’. When negation falls within the
scope ofjust, as in (50), we tend to obtain the depreciatory reading. When the
scope relations are reversed, the restrictive reading emerges. Why should this
be?
Let me take each of these situations in turn, dealing first with the
situation illustrated by (50) in which negation falls within the scope of
just. The reason why this kind of structure tends to produce the
depreciatory rather than the restrictive reading seems to have to do with
pragmatic factors. Negative propositions lend themselves as easily to
downtoning as do positive ones. This follows from the fact that they are
typically used to contradict an assertion or implicature made by another
speaker and are therefore prime candidates for modalisation. If someone
asks me why I won’t lend him some money and I reply Zjust don’t have any
to spare at the moment, the depreciatory just performs a useful in-
terpersonal function here in softening my refusal, as it does when modalising
directives.
In order to address the question of why the context under discussion does
not produce the restrictive reading, I need to invoke from my earlier study the
notions of ‘focal process’ and ‘referent process’ (1987: 81). There I noted that
propositions modalised by either the depreciatory just or the restrictive just
are often contrasted with some explicit (or implicit) referent process. In (46),
for example, the referent process is ‘It’s serious’ and in (47) ‘I notice it at all
times’. The normal situation is that the process governed by just (the focal
process) is contrasted with the referent process - typically it is seen as a
situation that is less significant or restricted in some sense by comparison
with the latter.
Now although negative situations lend themselves naturally to the process
of downtoning, as we have seen, there is no similar natural motivation for
expressing the idea that a particular negative situation is in some sense
restricted by comparison with some referent process. It is difficult, for
example, to see how the situation designated by the sentence I don’t have any
to spare at the moment could be interpreted as ‘restricted’ by comparison with
some referent process, whereas positive situations such as I notice it at night
or It lifted in one heel lend themselves quite naturally to this interpretation.
The restrictive reading can, however, emerge when just governs negation,
providing that particular features of the context are favourable to this
reading. Consider (52), for example:
 (52) A: understand you didn’t speak at the meeting and didn’t listen
either.
B: No, that’s not true ~ I listened very carefully ~ I just didn’t speak.

Since A has set up a context here involving two negative situations in which B
appears to have participated, B is able to construct the fact that only one of
them applies as a restricted situation by comparison with the referent
situation established by A. This. however, is clearly a function of very specific
features of context. Out of context, the sentence J,just didn’t speak is more
naturally interpreted as depreciatory rather than restrictive. Again these
observations support the general argument of this paper that context plays a
crucial role in producing the various meanings associated with just.
What now of the converse situation? When ,just falls within the scope of
negation, as in (51) it is the restrictive reading that emerges more naturally.
Pragmatic factors seem to be at work here too. The viability of the restrictive
reading follows from the fact that it is entirely natural to express the meaning
that the more restricted of two alternative situations does not in fact obtain.
This is illustrated by an example such as I didn’t ,just listen to the drhare, I
took part in it (‘it is not the case that my activity was confined to listening to
the debate . ..‘). It is natural, that is, for the concept of restriction to fall
within the scope of negation. It is far less natural, however. for the process of
downtoning to be negated. It is difficult to imagine situations in which a
speaker would experience the need to express this kind of meaning, since it
does not perform the kind of sociolinguistic functions that positive down-
toning processes have. These pragmatic considerations seem then to support
the view that there are two rather different kinds of meaning, designated here
as depreciatory and restrictive, and to explain why each of them is associated
with different patterns of interaction between ,just and negation.
These observations do not, however, explain the differences from which
this discussion started ~ the contrast between examples (44))(46) (deprecia-
tory) on the one hand and (47)~-(48) (restrictive) on the other. The explana-
tion here may have something to do with the nature of the relationship
between the focal and referent process. In the first set of examples the focal
process is seen not as standing in a disjunctive relationship to the referent
process but as constituting a ‘milder’ alternative. Whereas the function of jzist
in (45) is to situate the speaker’s condition towards the milder end of the
continuum of ‘unwellness’ (which he designates as ‘seedy’). in (47) the
situation ‘just at night’ in effect excludes the referent situation ‘at all times’.
Clearly, however, this distinction is not an objective property of the
 D.A. Lee / Categories qfjust 63

situations in question but rather a matter of how the speaker or interpreter

constructs them. This means that there will be many cases where the
distinction between the depreciatory and restrictive readings is extremely
problematic. Consider such examples as the following from the doctor-
patient interviews cited in Lee (1987: 81-84).

(53) D: Ever had anything seriously wrong with you?

P: No, just this eye thing.
(54) D: Now we’ll just check your blood pressure.
(55) D: Does it do anything for your head?
P: No, it’s just for my knees.
(56) P: What would you do with that?
D: Just nick them out.
(57) D: I’ll have a word with her just about what your medical insurance
position is.
(58) P: I just want a prescription for my pill.
(59) P: I don’t do the drawback [in smoking], I just puff it somehow.

Each of these cases shows that the concept of restriction, like that of
marginality discussed in section 2, can be naturally harnessed to the down-
toning function. In (53) for example, the patient seems to be expressing the
idea that the category of ‘things wrong with him’ is highly restricted - to his
‘eye thing’ - but also that this is therefore a situation that should be
minimised. In (58) the speaker is indicating that the purpose of her visit is
concerned only with obtaining a prescription (restriction) but also suggesting
that this is a trivial situation (downtoning). Similar points could be made
about the other examples. Moreover, it is not only the fact that the idea of
restriction is associated in so many situations with that of minimisation which
makes the boundary between these readings a difficult one to draw. Another
factor involved here is that referent processes are often implicit, so that a
hearer may be in some doubt as to how to interpret the relationship between
the focal and the referent process in a particular case. In (57) for example,
the doctor needs some information concerning medical insurance from the
patient’s older sister, who is not in the consulting room. It is possible that the
doctor uses just here to inform the patient that his talk with the sister will be
restricted to the question of medical insurance. This would allay any fear the
patient might have of the doctor discussing other topics (e.g. the patient’s
condition) with her (the latter therefore constituting the referent process). On
the other hand, it is clearly debatable whether such a process is salient to any
64 D.A. Lee : Categories ofJust

degree in the mind of either doctor or patient. That is, ,just may simply have a
general depreciatory function here. Even when the referent process is explicit,
there may be uncertainty as to whether it should be construed as standing in
a disjunctive relationship to the focal process or whether the two stand in a
relationship involving relative degree of manifestation. In (59) for example
the patient is explicitly contrasting the process of ‘just puffing it’ with that of
‘doing the drawback’ but not at all clear whether these are thought of as
mutually exclusive situations (in which case it would seem appropriate to
analyse it in terms of the restrictive reading) or whether the former is thought
of as a milder variant of the latter. Considerations of this kind, interacting
with the fact that the notion of restriction can function simultaneously in the
propositional and in the interpersonal component make the task of distin-
guishing between the two readings in many situations not only a problematic
but also an unnecessary exercise.

6. Conclusion

It is, of course, difficult to assess the general significance of an analysis of

an element that is as idiosyncratic as ,just. It may be that the kind of
descriptive principles adopted here do not easily generalise beyond this
particular item. There are, however, certain indications that the discussion
may in fact have wider implications. In some respects this study has been
heavily influenced, at least in its initial stages, by Moore and Carling (1982).
in which a general attack is mounted on some fundamental assumptions of
structural linguistics concerning the nature of semantics. In particular. Moore
and Carling argue against the assumption that linguistic units are charac-
terised by relatively homogeneous meanings and emphasise the crucial role of
interactive processes in the production of meaning.
A more recent influence has been George Lakoffs (1987) monumental
study of the nature of categories. Lakoff argues against what he calls the
Objectivist paradigm, based on the idea that the members of a given linguistic
or conceptual category all share a given criteria1 feature or set of features.
The major concept which Lakoff seeks to substitute for the Objectivist view is
that of a radially structured category. typically characterised by such features
as centrality, chaining, experiential domains, cognitive models, motivation
(Lakoff 1987: 95596). The analysis proposed here suggests that in one respect
at least ,just is not an ideal example of a radially structured category in
Lakoffs sense. This has to do with the fact that there does seem to be one
 D.A. Lee ! Categories of just 65

notion - that of restriction ~ that is shared by all members of the category:

depreciatory, restrictive, specificatory, intensificatory, emphatic. However,
the nature of the model which the argument presupposes is much closer to
that assumed generally by Lakoff than it is to the traditional Objectivist
model. The price that we have to pay for postulating a unitary just involves
interpreting the range of meanings associated with it as emerging from a
complex set of interactional processes involving a wide range of factors:
marginal phase, affect, prosodic features, paralinguistic features and scope.
Of particular interest is the fact that the interactional processes in question
are rooted in human cognition. The elements with which just enters into
interaction cannot be divided into discrete classes in terms of some set of
objectively defined characteristics. Crucial to the whole process of interpreta-
tion is the way in which a particular situation is constructed or conceptu-
alised. This point is illustrated particularly clearly by the cases which situate
themselves on the borderlines between the major categories. The study of
interactional processes in which I have engaged here can be interpreted in the
context of Lakoffs model as an attempt to grapple with the question of
motivation - i.e. as an attempt to explain why and how just produces the
particular range of meanings that we observe.

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