(I don't make assertions about other individuals; only>assertion) Hence, dake generates alternative temporary contexts, 'if we are speaking of John', 'if we are speaking of Mary', etc., and the exhaustive component of dake conveys that the speaker is restricting her assertion to the proposition 'John came' with the discourse topic 'John': 16The utterance of 'John-dake-wa kita' is felicitous iff a.
s asserts 'John came'; and the truth-condition of (15) is the same as that of John-ga kita and John-wa kita, namely 'John came'.