Translating ちょっとそこまでは

Question

Context: Weird things have been happening, people dead coming back to life for short time. Character A has mentioned that to B, and B explains they heard about it from books and that it might involve necromancy. Character A replies:

わたしも、ちょっとそこまでは――

Now, I have found references that ちょっとそこまで can mean asking to step away/out for a while, excusing oneself to go to bathroom and such. But here I don't think this is a case. I'm FAR from certain, but I feel A is replying saying that that idea (necromancy thing) is a bit too much or something? Am I close orrr...

Then again if she dissagrees, why use も with わたし?

Answer 1

Judging from your explanation of the context,

「わたしも、ちょっとそこまでは・・」

would mean:

「わたしも、ちょっとそこまでは（わかりません, わかりかねます, etc.）。」

= "I couldn't really be sure about that." (that = necromancy)

↓

= "The matter is beyond my comprehension."

Negative words and phrases are often left unsaid in informal Japanese and the word 「ちょっと」 enables us to safely omit them without worrying about the listener not understanding the speaker.

So, why use 「も」? This 「も」 is not the clear-cut "too" or "also". Instead, it is used to imply that the speaker thinks that the listener himself (B) would probably be also unsure about the relevance of necromancy here.

Finally, there would be no chance that this 「ちょっとそこまでは」 has anything to do with the common phrase uttered when stepping out for a while. Why not? Because it ends with the particle 「は」, which alone suggests something was left unsaid. You never use 「は」 at the end of the phrase for stepping out for a minute.