Abstract
The primary theoretical focus of this paper is on Free Choice uses of any, in particular on two phenomena that have remained largely unstudied. One involves the ability of any phrases to occur in affirmative episodic statements when aided by suitable noun modifiers. The other involves the difference between modals of necessity and possibility with respect to licensing of any. The central thesis advanced here is that FC any is a universal determiner whose domain of quantification is not a set of particular individuals but the set of possible individuals of the relevant kind. In a theory of genericity utilizing situations, an any phrase can be seen as having a universal quantifier binding the situation variable of the common noun. This inherent genericity is argued to be at the heart of the intuition that any statements support counterfactual inferences and do not involve existential commitments. A conflict in presuppositions is shown to account for the incompatibility of unmodified any phrases in affirmative episodic statements and the crucial role played by modification in ameliorating this clash is explicated. In the case of modals of necessity, the interaction between the universal force of any and the particular modal base is shown to be crucial. In view of these facts it is argued that FC any is not directly licensed by modal or generic operators as generally assumed but that its felicitous use is sensitive to the pragmatics of epistemic modality. Turning to its polarity sensitive uses, language internal as well as crosslinguistic evidence is presented to distinguish it from FC any in having the existential quantificational force typical of indefinites. The paper concludes by suggesting that the common tie between them is that they both occur in statements that apply to a class of entities, rather than to particular members of the class.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bolinger, D.: 1967, ‘Adjectives in English’, Lingua 18, 1–34.
Büring, D.: 1997, ‘The Great Scope Inversion Conspiracy’, Linguistics and Philosophy 20, 175–194.
Carlson, G.: 1977, Reference to Kinds in English, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachussets, Amherst, MA.
Carlson, G.: 1980, ‘Polarity any is Existential’, Linguistic Inquiry 11(4), 799–804.
Carlson, G.: 1981, ‘Distribution of Free Choice Any’, Proceedings of Chicago Linguistic Society 17.
Carlson, G.: 1989, ‘On the Semantic Composition of English Generic Sentences’, in G. Chierchia, B. Partee and R. Turner (eds.), Properties, Types and Meaning II, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Chierchia, G.: 1995, ‘Individual Level Predicates as Inherent Generics’, in G. Carlson and F. J. Pelletier (eds.), The Generic Book, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
Cohen, A.: 1997, ‘Generics, Frequency Adverbs, and Probability’, Unpublished Ms., Ben Gurion University, Israel.
Cresswell, M.: 1990, Entities and Indices, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Davison, A.: 1978, ‘Negative Scope and Rules of Conversation: Evidence from an OV Language’, in P. Cole (ed.), Syntax and Semantics: Pragmatics, Vol. 9, Academic Press, New York.
Davison, A.: 1980, ‘Any as Universal or Existential’, in van der Auwera (ed.), The Semantics of Determiners, Croom Helm, London.
Dayal, V.: 1995a; ‘Licensing Any in Non-negative/Non-modal Contexts’, Proceedings of SALT V.
Dayal, V.: 1995b, ‘Quantification in Correlatives’, in E. Bach, E. Jelinek, A. Kratzer and B. Partee (eds.), Quantification in Natural Language, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Dayal, V.: 1996, Locality in Wh Quantification, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Dayal, V.: 1997, ‘Free Relatives and Ever: Identity and Free Choice Readings’, Proceedings of SALT VIII.
Donnellan, K.: 1966, ‘Reference and Definite Descriptions’, Philosophical Review 75, 281–304.
Eisner, J.: 1994, ‘“∀”-less in Wonderland?: Revisiting Any’, Proceedings of ESCOL 11.
Enç, M.: 1986, Tense Without Scope: An Analysis of Nouns as Indexicals, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California.
Fauconnier, G.: 1975a, ‘Pragmatic Scales and Logical Structure’, Linguistic Inquiry 6(3), 353–75.
Fauconnier, G.: 1975b, ‘Polarity and the Scale Principle’, Papers from the Eleventh Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, CLS, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.
von Fintel, K.: 1994, Restrictions on Quantifier Domains, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.
Giannakidou, A.: 1997, The Landscape of Polarity Items, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Groeningen.
Groenendijk, J. and M. Stokhof: 1984, Studies on the Semantics of Questions and the Pragmatics of Answers, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Amsterdam.
Haspelmatch, M.: 1997, Indefinite Pronouns, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Heim, I.: 1982, The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.
Heim, I.: 1984, ‘A Note on Negative Polarity and Downward Entailingness’, Proceedings of NELS 14.
Hintikka, J.: 1977, ‘Quantifiers in Natural Language: Some Logical Problems II’, Linguistics and Philosophy 1, 153–172.
Hintikka, J.: 1980, ‘On the Any-Thesis and the Methodology of Linguistics’, Linguistics and Philosophy 4, 101–122.
Horn, L.: 1972, On the Semantic Properties of Logical Operators in English, Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA.
Jackson, E.: 1995, ‘Negative Polarity and General Statements’, Proceedings of SALT V.
Kadmon, N. and F. Landman: 1993, ‘Any’, Linguistics and Philosophy 16, 353–422.
Kamp, H.: 1981, ‘A Theory of Truth and Semantic Interpretation’, in J. Groenendijk, T. Janssen, and M. Stokhof (eds.), Formal Methods in the Study of Language, Mathematical Centre Tracts, Amsterdam.
Kamp, H.: 1973, ‘Free Choice Permission’, Meeting of the Aristotelian Society.
Kamp, H. and U. Ryle: 1993, From Discourse to Logic, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Kratzer, A.: 1989, ‘An Investigation of the Lumps of Thought’, Linguistics and Philosophy 12, 607–653.
Kawashima, R.: 1994, ‘Deriving Paradoxical Flip-flop Change in Quantificational Force in Japanese’, in M. Koizumi and H. Ura (eds.), Formal Approaches to Japanese Linguistics; Proceedings of the May 1994 MIT Conference.
Kratzer, A.: 1995, ‘Stage-Level and Individual-Level Predicates’, in G. Carlson and F. J. Pelletier (eds.), The Generic Book, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
Krifka, M.: 1990, ‘Polarity Phenomena and Alternative Semantics’, in M. Stokhof and L. Torenvliet (eds.), Proceedings of the Seventh Amsterdam Colloquium, Part I. ITLI publication, University of Amsterdam.
Krifka, M.: 1994, ‘Weak and Strong Polarity Items in Assertions’, Proceedings of SALT IV.
Krifka, M.: 1995, ‘The Semantics and Pragmatics of Polarity Items’, Linguistic Analysis 25, 1–49.
Krifka, M., F. Pelletier, G. Carlson, A. ter Meulen, G. Chierchia and G. Link: 1995, ‘Genericity: An Introduction’, in G. Carlson and F. J. Pelletier (eds.), The Generic Book, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
Kroch, A.: 1974, The Semantics of Scope in English, Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA.
Ladusaw, W.: 1979, Polarity Sensitivity as Inherent Scope Relations, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, Austin, TX.
Lahiri, U.: 1995, ‘Negative Polarity in Hindi’, Proceedings of SALT V.
Lasnik, H.: 1972, Analyses of Negation in English, Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA.
Lee, C.: 1996, ‘Negative Polarity Items in English and Korean’, Language Sciences 18, 505–523.
Lee, Y. and L. Horn: 1994, ‘Any as Indefinite plus Even’, Unpublished Ms., Yale University.
LeGrand, J.: 1975, Or and Any: The Syntax and Semantics of Two Logical Operators, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, IL.
Lewis, D.: 1975, ‘Adverbs of Quantification’, in B. Keenan (ed.), Formal Semantics of Natural Language, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lewis, D.: 1979, ‘A Problem About Permission’, in E. Saarinen, R. Hilpinen, I. Niiniluoto and M. Provence Hintikka (eds.), Essays in Honour of Jaako Hintikka, Reidel, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Lin, J. W.: 1996, Polarity Licensing and Wh-Phrase Quanufication in Chinese, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.
Linebarger, M.: 1987, ‘Negative Polarity and Grammatical Representation’, Linguistics and Philosophy 10, 325–387.
Mahajan, A.: 1990, ‘LF Conditions on Negative Polarity Licensing’, Lingua 80, 333–48.
McNally, L.: 1992, An Interpretation for the English Existential Construction, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Santa Cruz, CA.
Milsark, G.: 1974, Existential Sentences in English, Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA.
Musan, R.: 1995, On the Temporal Interpretation of Noun Phrases, Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA.
Partee, B.: 1986, ‘Any, Almost, and Superlatives’, Unpublished Ms., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.
Percus, O.: 1991, Explorations in the Semantics of ‘Any’, Masters thesis, University of Edinburgh.
Perlmutter, D.: 1970, ‘On the Article in English’, in M. Bierwisch and K. Heidolph (eds.), Progress in Linguistics, Mouton, The Hague, The Netherlands.
Rooth, M.: 1985, Association with Focus, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.
Quine, W.: 1960, Word and Object, Cambridge, MIT Press.
Sadler, L. and D.J. Arnold: 1994, ‘Prenominal Adjectives and the Phrasal/Lexical Distinction’, Journal of Linguistics 30, 187–226.
Simons, M.: 1996, ‘Disjunction and Anaphora’, Proceedings of SALT VI.
Smith, N.: 1975, ‘On Generics’, Transactions of the Philological Society, 27–48.
Tovena, L. and J. Jayez: 1997, ‘The Modal Arbitrariness of Any’, Unpublished Ms, Université de Geneve and EHESS, Paris.
Vendler, Z.: 1967, Linguistics in Philosophy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
Zwarts, F.: 1995, ‘Nonveridical Contexts’, Linguistic Analysis 25, 286–312.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dayal, V. Any as Inherently Modal. Linguistics and Philosophy 21, 433–476 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005494000753
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005494000753