# たった, だけ



## divisortheory

Are these opposites of each other?  I've always known about the pattern <#>も～ to express the idea of "as many as" or "as much as", where you're emphasizing how significant the quantity is.  For example:

毎日コーヒーを１０杯も飲んでいるよ。
Every day I drink *ten* cups of coffee.  (Wow!  10 cups!  omg!)

But I never really thought about how to say the same thing but emphasizing "as little as".  だけ is of course one way:

昨晩試験のために勉強して、１時間だけで合格しました。
Last night I only studied for the test for an hour and passed.

But recently I learned that I can put たった in front of the number, and it seems to emphasize how surprisingly small the number was, in the same way that も indicates how surprisingly large the quantity is:

昨晩試験のために勉強して、たった１時間で合格しました。
Last night I studied for *just a single hour* and was able to pass the test.

Since I can't find a formal explanation of this construction anywhere, I was hoping someone could validate my thinking about this pattern: 

1) Am I right in thinking that this is closer than だけ to the emphasis that you would get with <#>も, but emphasizing the smallness of the quantity instead of the largeness of the quantity?
2) Am I right in thinking that it should be unexpected that the quantity should be sufficient, but that in the end, surprisingly, it was actually sufficient?  For example, I suspect the following sounds awkward (barring any unrelated mistakes I made):

砂漠に瀕死で、たった１滴の水に入っていた水筒を見つけた。
I was dying in the desert, and found a bottle with just a single drop of water. 
(Maybe しか。。。ない is more appropriate here?)

But the following probably sounds ok (also barring any unrelated mistakes I made)

砂漠に瀕死のに、水筒からのたった１滴の水で近い街までも這うように行きました。
I was dying in the desert, but by drinking just a single drop of water left in my canteen, was able to crawl my way to a nearby town.


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## Flaminius

Hi,

Might you probably be interested in how たった and だけ are different?  The difference does not necessarily hinge on how they are close to も.

True, も is a good key to understand the two.  If I am to make an oppositional pair out of the two phrases below with 100万円も? then I'd choose Choice 2.
1. 1円だけ?
2. たった1円?

You may conclude that たった has stronger emphasis than だけ but it is probably due to different functions of the two.  Xだけ is "X and only X", so it does not necessarily for quantity. 
山田さんだけが来た。
Only Yamada came.

Obviously, たった山田さんが来た is wrong.


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## divisortheory

Well, the reason I chose to compare against も is because both seem to involve an element of surprise.  Whereas も seems to leave the listener with the feeling of "wow, _that much_?" たった seems to leave the listener with a sense of "wow, _that little_?"  Or at least that's the impression I got.  

So mostly I just wanted to confirm my suspicion that たった describes an unexpectedly low value (with the unexpected aspect being required for correct usage), and that the value expressed by たった must have been sufficient for some purpose.


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## divisortheory

Is this the same word that is used in the following sentence?

実際、ただ1人の横綱は朝青龍で、モンゴル出身です。

I feel like this is probably a different word, but they look similar enough that I thought ただ might be a contraction, or shortened-form of たった.


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## Milou06

divisortheory said:


> Well, the reason I chose to compare against も is because both seem to involve an element of surprise. Whereas も seems to leave the listener with the feeling of "wow, _that much_?" たった seems to leave the listener with a sense of "wow, _that little_?" Or at least that's the impression I got.
> 
> So mostly I just wanted to confirm my suspicion that たった describes an unexpectedly low value (with the unexpected aspect being required for correct usage), and that the value expressed by たった must have been sufficient for some purpose.


 
Yes, you've got it


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## Milou06

divisortheory said:


> Is this the same word that is used in the following sentence?
> 
> 実際、ただ1人の横綱は朝青龍で、モンゴル出身です。
> 
> I feel like this is probably a different word, but they look similar enough that I thought ただ might be a contraction, or shortened-form of たった.


 
'たった' and 'ただ' mean 'ONLY' but 'たった' sounds more casual to me.


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## divisortheory

Milou06 said:


> 'たった' and 'ただ' mean 'ONLY' but 'たった' sounds more casual to me.



Milouーさん、お返事ありがとうございました。日本語では返事を書いてみて、分かるといいです。

では、この二つの言葉は、それ以外にきちんと同じ感じでしょうか。

例えば、両方はちょっとびっくりと感じさせたりしますか。それとも「ただ」と言うなら、意外性がより少なくですか。


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## Milou06

'たった' is a germinated form （促音化） of 'ただ' , so basically they are exactly the same, but I use more often 'たった' than 'ただ', and 'わずか' is a similar word and sounds more formal.

『たった』も『ただ』もびっくりする感じではないし意外性も感じません。
文章の組み立てによって強調することは可能だと思います。

日本語って難しいですね！（私にとっても・・・）


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## divisortheory

ありがとうございました、ミロウさん。分かりました。


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