**Neither a teacher nor a native speaker.**
Hi,
I think "only if" is a condition and "if only" is a wish.
1) Conditions/Orders:
I will give you the money only if you do your work properly.
Only if you tell me his name, I will let you go.
2) Wishes
If only I had the chance to work...
(Said by an unemployed who finally wants to work.)
If only she were here, I would be so happy.
(The wish that a certain person is near you.)
P.S: It's an interesting question and I hope I am right
Cheers!
One more thing I want to add. Consider this sentences:
1. I agreed to visit his home if only for the food.
2. Notwithstanding, it seems, if only for a moment, like it's not working for me and my life at least.
In these sentences, "if" is used as an intensifier only.
But as I sit, I know I must try to tell it, if for no other reason than to finally put this all behind me.
Didn't get you. Why not?'Hard cases make bad law', as they say! I don't think it's sensible to talk about the function of "if" in the idiomatic forms "if only because" and "if for no other reason".
b
Because, in the words of Grévisse, 'Les mots n'existent pas'. Individual words don't have a single, monolithic, canonical 'meaning', that you can hold up with metaphorical tweezers and examine with a metaphorical microscope. Individual words only have a function as part of the meaning of an utterance, and that only has a meaning in its context.Didn't get you. Why not?