ABSTRACT

In this chapter we outline some major empirical results and theoretical developments that have emerged from the study of quantification in North American languages, focusing on nominal quantification. We find that weak quantifiers can function as cardinality predicates, but can also be interpreted as DP-internal proportional quantifiers. Strong quantifiers are often, but not always, expressed as A-quantifiers (e.g., as adverbials). North American languages generally lack quantificational determiners (quantificational elements in D position), which raises the issue of whether they also lack generalized quantifiers; among the languages in which the relevant semantic tests have been done, Passamaquoddy, Gitksan, and Kwak’wala all appear to have generalized quantifiers, while St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish) appears to lack them.