Abstract

Quantified terms are terms of generality. They are also provide some of our prime examples of the phenomenon of scope. The distinction between singular and general terms, as well as the ways that general terms enter into scope relations, are certainly fundamental to our understanding of language. Yet when we turn to natural language, we encounter a huge and apparently messy collection of general terms; not just every and some, but most, few, between five and ten, and many others. Natural-language sentences also display a complex range of scope phenomena; unlike first-order logic, which clearly and simply demarcates scope in its notation.