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.
