What all happens when a universal quantifier combines with an interrogative DP

Universal quantifiers such as all select a DP as their complement and can be ‘floated’ or ‘stranded’ by that DP, and in certain Germanic languages they can also co-occur with an interrogative DP. The purpose of this article is to investigate whether interrogative and non-interrogative DPs that co-occur with a universal quantifier in the Germanic languages have the same relationship to that quantifier and have gone through the same selection process. I begin with evidence from German that universal quantifiers can select and be stranded by interrogative as well as non-interrogative DPs, but I ultimately argue, going back to an analysis in Giusti (1990b), that a universal quantifier co-occurring with an interrogative is base-generated to the right of that interrogative, not to its left. I also propose that the formation of interrogative expressions involving universal quantifiers may take place in the syntax or in the lexicon, depending on the language.

Published online: 16 February 2011
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.171.05cir