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“I have enormous faith and confidence in Merritt Paulson, who’s built from scratch one of the great sports teams, in any sport, in our country, if not throughout North America,” Garber said in February.

Does it mean "though not throughout North America" or "if not seeing from the whole North America"?

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"If not X" is rhetorical, elliptical and parenthetical and has the meaning of "if not, indeed," or "and quite possibly."

“I have enormous faith and confidence in Merritt Paulson, who’s built from scratch one of the great sports teams, in any sport, in our country, if not throughout North America,”

can be restructured as

“I have enormous faith and confidence in Merritt Paulson, who’s built from scratch one of the great sports teams, in any sport, in our country - and I wonder if it is not true that [he has built from scratch one of the great sports teams] throughout North America.”

which, more lucidly, is

“I have enormous faith and confidence in Merritt Paulson, who’s built from scratch one of the great sports teams, in any sport, in our country and quite possibly throughout North America.”

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  • Could you make some other sentences with "if not"?
    – feng rao
    Commented Oct 7, 2022 at 11:22
  • 2
    @feng rao That would be difficult, if not impossible.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Oct 7, 2022 at 14:21
  • It has some of the same kind of scalar implications as let alone. Whatever follows if not must be comparatively "more", in some sense. In this case, North America is bigger than the USA and contains more sports teams to compare with.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Oct 7, 2022 at 14:39

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