Quantifiers

[Everett, Daniel]

Imagine two quantifiers. One can be used to mean "all" in the sense of "all men (that anyone could ever imagine)." The other can only be used in the sense of "all (those we recognize in our culture/those in the next village over/those in the immediate context of discourse/etc)."

Call the first one "unrestricted." Call the second one "domain-restricted."

Is any language known that has only the latter? For semanticists, would there be any principle barring the existence of only the restricted type (whose domain is a subset of the former's) in the absence of the unrestricted?

Dan


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Daniel L. Everett

http://daneverettbooks.com
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