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Universal quantification as degree modification in Arabic

Summary

The paper asks why the Arabic universal quantifier kull ('every/all') behaves so much like superlatives. It compares three construct-state patterns: quality superlatives (ʔaʕlā 'highest'), the quantity superlative ʔakθar 'most', and kull. Each appears with definite and indefinite, singular and plural dependent nominals. Hallman uses a Link-style semantics of plurality: plural nouns denote sums that include atoms, and the definite article is a maximizing iota operator. He adds degree semantics for gradable adjectives with partitive (part) and measure (meas) operators. On this account, ʔakθar picks out a part of the dependent's denotation that is larger than every other non-overlapping part. kull does the same, except the competing parts may overlap, and only the whole entity wins such a comparison. This is the source of universal force. The every-like, strongly distributive reading of kull with an indefinite singular comes from type-shifting kull to a predicate of sets. The all-like reading with a definite plural does not involve that shift. The analysis unifies three constructions that look different and suggests that English every/all may be superlatives too.

Key points

  • The three Arabic terms are the quality superlative ʔaʕlā, the quantity superlative ʔakθar 'most', and the universal kull. All are built on the superlative template ʔaCCaC or a close variant of its meaning.
  • The data come from the construct state. With a definite dependent, all three terms are partitive, e.g. 'highest of the mountains' and 'all of the mountain'. With an indefinite dependent, ʔakθar is ungrammatical. kull accepts only a singular there and then means 'every'.
  • Plurals are modelled as sums closed under ⊕ that include atoms (following Link 1983, Krifka, Sauerland and others). The definite article l- is a maximizing iota.
  • Strong distributivity arises when kull, meas and part are shifted to the type of set predicates, which Szabolcsi (1997) links to distributivity. Definite plural contexts block this lift.
  • *kull žibāl (like English *every mountains) is ruled out because evaluating it would require counting plural individuals. Natural language counts only atoms: three children can be one group or three entities, never seven.

Interesting ideas

  • I1. The paper treats "all" and "most" as one comparison over parts of a plurality, and the only difference is whether the competing parts may overlap. One small parameter thus separates proportional from universal quantification. — For Mova (world): Quantifiers could be evaluated in the world of the text as comparisons over entity sums, so "most of the apples" and "all of the apples" use one explainable mechanism with an overlap flag.
  • I2. A definite plural is taken as the maximal sum of contextually relevant atoms, and plural denotations also contain the atoms themselves. This gives one uniform referent for "the mountains" that is still easy to break down into members. — For Mova (world): Plural noun phrases could be stored as sum entities that keep links to their atomic members, so later states or holdings can attach to the group or to each member.
  • I3. The strongly distributive "every" reading and the weaker "all" reading come from the semantic type of the quantified expression (sets versus sums), not from separate lexical entries. — For Mova (frames): When building who-did-what frames, "every N" could by default expand into one frame per atom, while "all the N" stays open to a collective frame on the group.
  • I4. Counting operates only on atoms, never on sub-groupings of a plurality. Landman's three children can count as one or three entities but never seven. — For Mova (answer): Maths word-problem solvers could enforce atom-only counting over plural entities, which guards against inflated counts from group or subgroup readings.
  • I5. The analysis rests on a full grid of contrasts: three terms crossed with definiteness and number, ungrammatical cells included. Gaps in the grid serve as evidence just as filled cells do. — For Mova (learn): Evaluation suites could be built as similar factorial grids with deliberately ill-formed cells as negative controls, checking that the parser and the semantics reject what they should.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

Fields: Linguistics & languages

Topics: Semitic languages

Institutions

🎓University of ViennaVienna · Austria6 works · 38 626 citations

Cite

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.5334/gjgl.131

@article{hallman2016universal,
  title = {{Universal quantification as degree modification in Arabic}},
  author = {Hallman, Peter},
  journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics},
  year = {2016},
  doi = {10.5334/gjgl.131},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.131}
}

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  66. How to cite this article: Hallman, Peter. 2016. Universal quantification as degree modification in Arabic. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 1(1): 26. 1–31, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.131 ↗ our card
  67. Copyright: © 2016 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by Ubiquity Press. OPEN ACCESS ↗

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