Two Types of Floated Quantifiers

Abstract

This paper differentiates the structures of various floated quantifiers, criticizing previous works that place them uniformly in the same structure. Considering that the precise syntactic nature of an expression can be determined only when its semantics is taken into account, the current work articulates the semantic differences found among floated quantifiers along with their distributional discrepancies. The quantifier each, as a distributivity marker, has three uses that are closely associated with three arguments that it is essentially composed of while the quantifiers all and both, as universality markers, are partitioned into two parts, manifesting only two uses. The distinction between the three-part and the two-part structures brings about the distinct syntactic positions of the floated quantifiers. Represented in a flat string, their positions seem identical but, at the hierarchical configurations, their structures must be differentiated. Yet, scrutinizing not only transitive and intransitive constructions but also the ditransitive construction, it is emphasized that the constituent to which the floated quantifier each attaches must be generalized to be the relation-denoting expression of the sentence that is sectioned into three parts. This paper further assumes a movement of the direct object when the floated each occurs in the ditransitive construction and finds that this theory-internally motivated movement is, in fact, empirically justified.