Instructor: Imola-Ágnes Farkas

farkas_imola_agnes@yahoo.com
Office hours: Tuesday 9-10 a.m.

Introduction to Generative Grammar

Floating quantifiers

Outline
Compare the sentences:

1. All the students have met George.

[TP All the students have [vP all the students met George.]]

2. The students have all met George.

[TP ?? the students have [vP all ?? met George.]]

Seminar 6 Page 1
Draw the tree diagram of the following sentence: All the students have met George.

DP ‘the students’ pied-pipes its host QP when it moves to spec-TP

Draw the tree diagram of the following sentence: The students have all met George.

DP ‘the students’ does not pied-pipe its host QP when it moves to spec-TP.
1. All the students have met George. Subject movement with pied-piping
[TP All the students have [vP all the students met George.]]

2. The students have all met George. Subject movement without pied-piping
[TP The students have [vP all the students met George.]]

Compare the sentences:

3. All the students have promised to meet George.

final landing site

4. The students have all promised to meet George.

intermediate landing site

5. The students have promised all to meet George.

intermediate landing site

6. The students have promised to all meet George.

original merger

The various positions of floating quantifier all show the original position and intermediate landing sites of the main
subject ‘all the students’.
Fill in the missing nodes in the tree diagram of the following sentence: All the students have promised to meet George.
Fill in the missing nodes in the tree diagram of the following sentence: The students have all promised to meet George.
Fill in the missing nodes in the tree diagram of the following sentence: The students have promised all to meet George.
Fill in the missing nodes in the tree diagram of the following sentence: The students have promised to all meet George.
Fill in the missing nodes in the tree diagram of the following sentence: Both these students should be studying.
Fill in the missing nodes in the tree diagram of the following sentence: These students should both be studying.
Fill in the missing nodes in the tree diagram of the following sentence: These students should be both studying.
Conclusions:

A floating/ stranded quantifier is phonologically separated from the nominal it quantifies.

Floating quantifiers show nominal movement across the functional domain of a clause (original merger/ launch site !
intermediate landing sites …! final landing site.

Subject movement is triggered by EPP features of functional phrases (Tense, Mood, Modality, Aspect). The EPP feature
of each clausal category triggers movement to the specifier (last merger) position of that category. When the nominal
that moves is quantified, and one of the Move! operations fails to pied-pipe the hosting quantifier phrase, the linearized
structure will reveal a floating/ stranded quantifier.

Further practice:

Draw the tree diagrams of the following sentences:

14. They have both promised to love each other.

15. We wanted all to attend the conference.
16. Have you all seen the movie?
17. We should all be attending the conference.