Abstract
Taking into account syntax, semantics and prosody, I elaborate a detailed characterization of Universal Quantifiers (∀Qs) in French. My description is restricted to tous les N ‘all the N’ and chacun des Ns ‘each of the N’, and I discuss their semantics (distributivity, collectivity, presupposition), prosody and syntax (both at the DP and sentential levels). I show that ∀Qs also display specificity and partitivity, but that contrary to wh-phrases and ∃Qs, this information is lexically encoded. One consequence is that they are clause-bound. Another related consequence is that they never display Split-DP structures. I claim that these Qs are complex DPs, composed of an operator, a restriction and a nuclear scope. I show that ∀Qs are best analyzed as adjoined to a maximal projection (Doeties, 1997, Quantifiers and Selection. On the Distriction of Quantifying Expressions in French, Dutch and English. Doctoral) dissertation, HIL, Leiden University; Fitzpatrick, 2006, Syntactic and Semantic Routes to Floating Quantification. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.
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Notes
- 1.
FQs can also be clause final. However, in that position, they prosodically and semantically involve focus-like properties (Puskás 2002). For this reason, they are not discussed here.
- 2.
- 3.
In Chapter 5, I claim that this is a case that is handled by Relativized Minimality (RM).
- 4.
Marcel den Dikken (pc) notes that in English, it is possible get all as a predicate nominal, modulo a right context. Assuming that I have no more friends than Juliette, Patsy, Edina and Louise, I can say:
(i)
Juliette, patsy, Edina and Louise are all (of) my friends
It means that each of them is my friend, but not exhaustively. Under the exhaustive reading, where all that I have as friends is P, E and L, the sentence in (13b) is out. Thanks to Genoveva Puskás and Christopher Laenzlinger for helping me understand these data.
- 5.
This only argues for all not being a head and not in favor of some being a head. As Fitzpatrick (id) points out ‘one would have to explain also the absence of non-exhaustive examples like Mary’s some sisters and John’s most wishes’.
- 6.
The relevant distinction between English and French can be seen in (ia) vs. (ib). In both constructions, Mary is the possessor and three sisters/trois soeurs the possessed noun. The lexical possessors do not appear, at first glance, in the same position. Note that Mary in French is preceded by genitive de:
(i)
a.
Mary’s three sisters
b.
les trois soeurs de Mary
the three sisters ofgen Mary
See Szabolcsi 1994, Kayne 1993, 1994 for analyses of possessives in Hungarian, Romance languages and English. See Tremblay 1991, Zribi-Hertz 2003 for analyses of French possessives.
- 7.
The first diagnosis, namely the fact that of in English is optional with all, but obligatory with partitives, hardly applies to French, because French involves slightly different constructions. First, de is impossible with tous ‘all.pl’ plus a DP, (i); second, whenever de is present with a noun (being either spellt out as des (i.e. the contraction of de + les), or as de), it is compulsory (ii). As such, de is compulsory with chacun ‘each’ (iii):
(i)
tous (*des/ *de les) les garçons
(ii)
a. Un *(des) garçons
(partitive)
One of.the boys
b. Plusieurs *(des) garçons
(partitive)
Several of.the boys
c. Beaucoup *(des) livres
(partitive)
Many of.the books
d. Beaucoup *(de) livres
(quantitative)
Many of books
e. Le frère *(de) Marie
(possessive)
The brother of Mary
‘Mary’s brother’
f. Les frères (*des) enfants
(possessive)
the brother of.the children
The children’s brothers
d. L’analyse des données
the analysis of.the data
(iii)
chacun *(des) garçons
Hence, the test does not tell us anything about the status of partitive de vs. de in chacun des N.
- 8.
I would like to thank Christopher Laenzlinger for checking these data with me.
- 9.
That chaque ‘every’ and tout ‘all.sg.’ are Dets and as such behave differently from tous and chacun as been motivated in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.1.5. See also fn.12, Chapter 1.
- 10.
The facts that tous (but not all) agrees in gender and number with the following DP and that chacun agrees in gender only, is puzzling: they have determiner-like properties (see Section 3.1.3):
(i)
a.
Tous
les
garçons
all. masc.pl. the.pl boys.masc.pl
b.
Toutes les filles
all.fem.pl the.pl girls.fem.pl
(ii)
a.
Chacun des garcons
each.masc.sg of the boys.masc.pl
b.
Chacune des filles
each.fem.sg of the girls.fem.pl
- 11.
The idea put forward by Fitzpatrick 2006 is that of is part of the Q, and as such does not select the restriction (vs. partitive of), yielding (i):
(i)
[Q all (of) [DP pro]]
- 12.
The validity of this test has been empirically challenged (Partee 1986, a.o). Yet, it clearly sets tous les N apart from un Ns which is the point here, but does not say anything about the universal status of a Q.
- 13.
Note that in English, almost can modify both every and all, but not each:
(i)
a.
One boy ate almost all the apples
b.
One boy ate almost every apple
c. *
One boy ate almost each apple
(Beghelli and Stowell 1997:99, (34c–e))
These facts suggests that each resembles chacun and every/all seem closer to tous.
- 14.
Again, the same distinction holds of English (see Beghelli and Stowell 1997:99, (35d and e)):
(i)
a.
Not all the boys ate an ice-cream cone
b.
Not every boy ate an ice-cream cone
c. *
Not each boy ate an ice-cream cone
- 15.
Rizzi notes that the relevant examples are all grammatical in Italian. About (36), he says
[…] a closely related language, French, which also posseses a kind of Clitic Left Dislocation construction, seems to disallow indefinite topics, whatever their status with respect to specificity (native speakers’ judgments on [(36)] range from marginal to impossible; I have reported here the most restrictive set of judgments) (Rizzi 2005:18).
- 16.
A reviewer pointed out to me that ClLD constructions with tout le monde ‘everybody’ is generally not accepted by a large group of speakers. Note that one finds examples like these in the literature on French, (i):
(i)
?
Tout le monde, il aime le chocolat (spoken Parisian French)
every body, he likes chocolate (Zribi-Hertz 2003 :7 (16b))
Note though that (i) not a dislocated subject construction for her (see Zribi-Hertz 2003:7 for details). My guess is that acceptance of such sentences is register dependant. Whether (i) is a frozen expression or not doesn’t really matter for my purpose, since this chapter rather focalizes on tous les N, i.e. the plural counterpart of tout with a presupposed restriction. I don’t discuss the properties of tout le monde.
- 17.
If chacun comes with a demonstrative, then the sentence (i) is fine, Tabea Ihsane (p.c):
(i)
chacune de ces filles sera présente à ta soirée?
Each of these girls will be present at your party
This is due to the fact that specificity and partitivity are related to the Q as a whole, i.e. the Det modifying the NP is a deictic here, which might change the presupposition status of the whole Q.
- 18.
See fn. 64, Chapter 2.
- 19.
Arguably, presuppositional features are related to the (D)NP-argument over which the Q quantifies. If this is on the right track, tout étudiant ‘every student’ in (i) should not involve partitivity (vs. tous les étudiants ‘all the students’).
(i)
Tout étudiant a une carte de légitimation
All.sg student.sg has a card of legitimization
‘Every student has an ID card’
In (i), tout étudiant must be generic: in general every student has an ID. Incidentally the ∃Q object cannot take wide scope. From these facts one might infer that tout itself does not come with a partitive presupposition, but rather that presupposition is dependent on the (syntactic) nature of the restriction. Yet there are at least two issues related to generic tout which might influence the generic vs. partitive reading: (i) it comes with a bare NP only, rather that a full DP. (ii) generic tout comes with a singular DP. So tout might still be itself partitive, while ranging over different individuals in generic contexts. Genoveva Puskás (p.c) suggests that the bare singular NP étudiant in (i) is a property, i.e. the range that is given in the restriction is that of having the property ‘étudiant’ among all properties that might belong to the set. So tout étudiant means that for all entities with the property students (in the possible range of possible properties, i.e. cat, dog…) rather than for all individuals that exhaustively satisfies the conditions of the restriction.
That presuppositional features are related to the restriction associated with Q is supported by prosody: recall that wh-phrases in-situ realize the restriction of an abstract Q; on them, stress prominence arises with specificity (see Chapter 2, Section 2.1.2.2 and Chapter 4, Section 4.1.4.1).
- 20.
I claim in Section 3.1.3 that -un in chacun, is the restriction of Q (des N is not the restriction, but its DP-associate, i.e. an argument of the verb). It might well be the case the un is responsible for the specificity construal of chacun. Thanks to Marcel den Dikken for pointed this out to me.
- 21.
Chacun des N is intrinsically specific; tous les N is ambiguous between a partitive and a generic reading. To understand the distinction, chaque N needs to be brought up. Diesing 1992:19 argues that Individual Level predicates induce genericity, and that ‘subjects of individual-level predicates can only be bound by the generic operator (or an adverb of quantification)':
(i)
Firemen are available
(ii)can be uttered in a context where a journalist is inquiring about a fire that killed two people beside the fire station. It seemed that the firemen were late. The captain says:
(ii)
Habituellement, chaque pompier est prêt à partir
Usually every fireman is ready to go
chaque gets a full generic reading, but chacun is totally excluded here (see also Flaux and Van de Velde 1997); tous les N can appear in generic context (iiia) vs. (iiib)
(iii) a. *
Habituellement chacun des pompiers est prêt à parti
Usually each of the firemen is ready to go
b.
Habituellement, tous les pompiers sont prêts à partir
Usually all the /every firemen are ready to go
Both tous les N and chaque N can have generic construals; chacun is intrinsically specific, chaque is not and seems to trigger genericity only. Tous les N is ambiguous between genericity and partitivity. I have nothing to say about the ambiguity.
- 22.
Recall that the two ∀Qs are felicitous in specific contexts, see (41).
- 23.
Greg Ellison (p.c) points out that (66c) can have a synonymous distributive interpretation.
- 24.
(68) is not a good sentence for Junker 1995, her judgments are given in (i), i.e. there seems to be speaker variations:
- 25.
- 26.
Greg Ellison (p.c) challenges this argument in pointing out that since they (them, their) is used so widely as a singular gender-neutral pronoun in English (especially with a universally quantified antecedent), they in (79b) may in fact not be construed as a plural pronoun. Examples like (i) are not unusual:
(i)
a.
Every woman has the right to have their own child and to raise them the way they want to.
b.
Every man can achieve their goal if they try hard enough.
If this were correct, then all and every would be semantically equivalent in terms of number. I leave this open for further investigation.
- 27.
It is more appropriate to associate de with the DP-associate, rather than with Q. Recall that despite the fact that it is never optional, de in chacun des N is not the partitive de found with plusieurs ‘several’ (Section 3.1.1). In addition, de does not appear alone, but with the Det les, yielding des (by PF-incorporation, see Junker 1995): de cannot be separated from chacun (i) and does not appear in floating constructions, (ii):
(i)
*
Des étudiants, chacun réussira cette année
Of the students, each will.pass this year
(ii)
*
Des étudiants réussira chacun cette année
Of.the students will.succeed each this year
In that sense it is closer to the DP-associate than to Q. An empirical argument going in that direction is the fact de DP pronominalizes as a whole, and not only the DP, in (iii):
(iii)
a.
Oscar a enseigné chacune des matières
Oscar has taught each of the subjects
b.
Oscar les a chacune (*de) enseignées
Oscar them has each taught
- 28.
Hebrew, Greek and Arabic are languages where pro can be overtly realized with FQs (Fitzpatrick 2006). When FQ shows up in Hebrew, a pronominal clitic kol is compulsory (i), yielding kulam. When kol does not float, no pronoun shows up (ii) (see Shlonsky 1991 for a different account):
(i)
a.
Ha-yeladim yašnu kul-am
The-children slept all-3.MASC.PL
‘The children all slept’
b. *
Ha-yeladim yašnu kol
the-children slept all
(Fitzpatrick 2006:77, (82))
(ii)
a.
Katafti et kil ha-praxim bi-zhirut
I-picked ACC all the-flowers with-care
‘I picked all of the flowers carefully’
b. *
Katafti et kul-am ha-praxim bi-zhirut
i-picked ACC all-* MASC.PL the-flowers with-care
intended: ‘I picked all of the flowers carefully’ (Fitzpatrick 2006:77, (83))
- 29.
See Kobuchi-Philip 2003 (and subsq.) for a semantic analysis of FQ structures (for her, pro denotes a set of atoms), along Doetjes’s (and Fitzpatrick’s) lines. Note that for Kobuchi-Philip 2003, FQs and their prenominal counterpart do not share the same semantic value. She claims that the prenominal version of FQ chacun is chaque N. But I have shown above that this is not the case, and that chacun and chaque must be distinguished (Chapter 2, Section 1.1.1.5, see also fn. 12 of Chapter 1). Kobuchi-Philip 2006:2 claims that FQs and their prenominal counterparts ‘do differ in their truth conditions in that FQs (…) generally lack a collective reading, while [their non-FQ counterparts] can always be interpreted either distributively or collectively.’ If it is indeed often the case that FQs are more likely to be interpreted as distributive, Puskás 2002:117 argues that this is not the case of French FQs, concluding that
What the data reveal is that the collective or distributive reading depends much more on what is accessible, or pragmatically plausible: the clowns lifting pianos are visualized as a collective event, because apparently it is more difficult to access the individual lifting event.
In (i) and (ii), tous is systematically interpreted as collective (see section “Puskás 2002: Floating Quantifiers”):
(i)
a.
Tous les clowns ont soulevés un piano
All the clowns have lifted a piano
b.
Les clowns ont tous soulevés un piano
The clowns have all lifted a piano
(ii)
a.
Tous les clowns ont soulevés le piano
All the clowns have lifted the piano
b.
Les clowns ont tous soulevés le piano
the clowns have all lifted the piano
(Puskás 2002 :117, (39), (40))
- 30.
A potential objection is the agreement facts in French. It also holds for the adjunction analysis given for full ∀Qs, which is, at first sight, not suited to account for the agreement facts between the Q tous and the DP associate as in (i):
(i)
les infirmières sont toutes/* tous arrivées
The nurses.fem.pl are all.fem.pl / all.masc.pl arrived
Fitzpatrick 2006 shows that agreement between unrelated syntactic elements can be triggered, as in Spanish bound pronouns agreeing in number and gender with their antecedent. In Spanish and Russian case agreement arises in secondary predicate between depictives and the associate argument. See Fitzpatrick 2006 for details.
- 31.
Thanks to Marcel den dikken for pointing this out to me.
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Baunaz, L. (2011). Floating Quantification: French Universal Quantifiers. In: The Grammar of French Quantification. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 83. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0621-7_3
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