Floating numerals and floating quantifiers

This paper investigates the basic licensing conditions of the floating quantifier, e.g. all in The boys all took a card. It proposes a new analysis in which the quantificational operation of the floating quantifier is distinct from that of the quantifier local to a DP, e.g. all in All boys took a card, in the sense that the former takes place within the verbal domain while the latter takes place within the nominal domain. Under this view, floatable quantifiers are associated with an (often) inaudible nominal element that functions as the domain of quantification. Furthermore, this nominal element is taken to be either a lexical or a morphological component of the floatable quantifier. Observations such as that English all, each and both and Japanese numeral quantifiers are licensed to be floating quantifiers, while English every as well as English numeral quantifiers and Chinese numeral quantifiers are not, can be seen to follow from the circumstance that the former satisfy the proposed conditions while the latter do not.