Sufficient & Necessary Questions - - Question 15

Editorial:  It is clear that if this country's universities were living up to both their moral and their intellectual...

clauv123 July 30, 2018

the only

Why is " the only" in the last sentence not diagramed ?

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Meredith August 14, 2019

I have this same question, could someone please answer this? Thanks.

Irina August 14, 2019

@Meredith,

"The only" in the last sentence does not imply a conditional rule when viewed in a context of the sentence as a whole. The statement that "in most university bookstores the only publication that sells better than gossip Review is US Today," merely tells us that they are both best selling publications in most universities, negating the consequent of the first sentence.

The structure of the whole argument is:

P -> ~ Q
Q
?

Does this make sense?

Let me know if you have any further questions.