LessonsSupplementary Practice 12: Rhetorical Evidence, Competing Analyses and Reasoned RevisionQuiz

إِنَّمَا تَلِفَ جَانِبُ الْجِسْرِ الشَّرْقِيُّ.
Only the eastern side of the bridge was damaged.

Suppose the listener has asserted that the entire bridge was damaged. In that setting, innamā limits the damaged portion and corrects the exaggeration. If the audience instead asks when the damage occurred, this response does not address the requested temporal detail.

A careful analysis specifies the restricted proposition, its focus and the rejected alternative. Here the relevant alternative is damage to the whole bridge; innamā is not an automatic negation of every conceivable relation.

Opening interactive controls...

Restriction and its disputed alternative

Supplementary Practice 12: Rhetorical Evidence, Competing Analyses and Reasoned Revision

إِنَّمَا تَلِفَ جَانِبُ الْجِسْرِ الشَّرْقِيُّ.
Only the eastern side of the bridge was damaged.

Suppose the listener has asserted that the entire bridge was damaged. In that setting, innamā limits the damaged portion and corrects the exaggeration. If the audience instead asks when the damage occurred, this response does not address the requested temporal detail.

A careful analysis specifies the restricted proposition, its focus and the rejected alternative. Here the relevant alternative is damage to the whole bridge; innamā is not an automatic negation of every conceivable relation.