Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2012 Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy Series, Vol. 90

Covering a strikingly diverse range of languages from 12 linguistic families, this handbook is based on responses to a questionnaire constructed by the editors. Focusing on the formation, distribution and semantic interpretation of quantificational expressions, the book explores 17 languages including German, Italian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Malagasy, Hebrew, Pima, Basque, and more. The language data sets enable detailed crosslinguistic comparison of numerous features. These include semantic classes of quantifiers (generalized existential, generalized universal, proportional, partitive), syntactically complex quantifiers (intensive modification, Boolean compounding, exception phrases) and several others such as quantifier scope ambiguities, quantifier float, and binary quantifiers. Its theory-independent content extends earlier work by Matthewson (2008) and Bach et al. (1995), making this handbook suitable for linguists, semanticians, philosophers of language and logicians alike.

Introduction by Edward Keenan and Denis Paperno .- Chapter 1 The Quantifier Questionnaire by  Edward Keenan .- Chapter 2 Quantifiers in Adyghe by  Liudmila Nikolaeva .- Chapter 3 Quantification in Basque by Urtxi Etxeberria .- Chapter 4 Garifuna Quantification by Jena Barchas-Lichtenstein .- Chapter 5 Quantification in German by Gregory Kobele and Malte Zimmermann .- Chapter 6 The landscape of Quantificational expressions in Greek by  Anastasiya Giannakidou .- Chapter 7 Quantifiers in Modern Hebrew by Itamar Francez and Katja Goldring .- Chapter 8 Quantification in Hungarian by Aniko Csirmaz and Anna Szabolcsi .- Chapter 9 Quantifiers in Italian by Paola Crisma .- Chapter 10 Quantity expressions in Japanese by  J.-R. Hayashishita and Ayumi Ueyama .- Chapter 11 Malagasy Quantifiers by Rita Hanitramalala and Ileana Paul .- Chapter 12 Taiwan Mandarin Quantifiers by Grace C.-H. Kuo and Kristine M. Yu .- Chapter 13 Pima Quantifiers by Marcus Smith .- Chapter 14 Quantification in Standard Russian by Denis Paperno .- Chapter 15 Quantification in Telugu by Ravi Ponamgi .- Chapter 16 Quantification in Western Armenian by Hrayr Khanjian .- Chapter 17 Wolof Quantifiers by  Khady Tamba, Harold Torrence and Malte Zimmermann .- Chapter 18 Overview by Edward Keenan and Denis Paperno .- Subject Index

Edward L. Keenan is Distinguished Professor of linguistics at theUniversity of California at Los Angeles.  He received his PhD in Formal Linguistics from The University of Pennsylvania in 1969 for a thesis on A Presupposition Logic for Natural Language.  He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science.   He has published in numerous areas of linguistics, including syntactic typology, formal semantics, theoretical syntax, historical syntax, and Austronesian linguistics. He has co-authored two books:  Boolean Semantics for Natural Language (1985), with Leonard Faltz, and Bare Grammar: Lectures on Linguistic Invariants, with Edward P. Stabler (2003).

Denis Paperno is a graduate of the Moscow State University andcurrently a PhD candidate at the University of California at Los Angeles.  He has done fieldwork in the Komi Republic, the Udmurt Republic, the Caucasus, and W. Africa and has written a grammar of Beng  (Mande; Côte d'Ivoire) (in Russian).  In addition to African linguistics he has published in semantics and syntactic typology.

Enables cross-language research based on individual studies that each follow the same structure

Offers a unique breadth and diversity by covering 20 different languages from 15 language families

Presents reliable and accessible data on quantifiers written by native speaker linguists