Abstract The article critically reviews the main claims in the recent literature on the semantics of English at least , at the least and at the very least , as members of a larger family of scalar markers, and it focuses on the common meaning of at least , at the least and at the very least. This semantic ‘common core’ is described in terms of a scalar component, a positive component and a restrictive component. The context can highlight the latter two components and this is argued to explain the distinction described in the literature in terms of a positive evaluation and a rhetorical retreat. The article also proposes to explain the emphatic character of at the very least in terms of a double scalar comparison.
Johan van der Auwera (Mon,) studied this question.