Couple.

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:30 PM -0500 12/7/00, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>
>This is the partitive genitive, right?  I recall the term from French
>study, where 'des' would be used for "some (of an unspecified quantity of)
><plural noun>.  So, we can also say "I bought some books" with implied "of
>an unspecified quantity."  'Many', 'a few/few', 'any' work this way--others?
>
Actually, I'd argue (and have argued, following Milsark) that "I
bought some books" is not inherently partitive, as opposed to "I
bought some of the books" or "I eat SOME meats".  (The unstressed
non-partitive purely existential "some" of the first example is
sometimes indicated by "sm" in the literature.)  "Many" and "few"
have both these uses as well:  "He has many problems" doesn't
presuppose a pre-existent set of problems of which he has many (i.e.
a significant subset), and similarly for "She made few mistakes".
"He solved many/few of the problems" does have such a presupposition.
"Most", on the other hand, is always partitive or proportional (even
without a following "of the"), and "all" and "no"/"none" are as well.

larry