This book investigates the syntax and semantics of proportional most
and other majority quantifiers across languages. Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin
and Ion Giurgea draw on data from around 40 languages to demonstrate the
existence of two distinct semantic types of most: a distributive type,
which compares cardinalities of sets of atoms, and a cumulative type,
which involves measuring plural and mass entities with respect to a
whole. On the syntactic side, the most significant difference is between
partitive and non-partitive configurations: certain majority quantifiers
are specific to partitive constructions, while others are also allowed
in non-partitives. The volume also explores complex expressions of the
type the largest part and nominal quantifiers of the type the
majority. The authors argue in favour of a quantificational analysis of
most, in contrast to many recent studies, but adopt a
bipartition-cum-superlative analysis for the largest part.
The volume is a large-scale crosslinguistic investigation, offering
typological insights as well as case studies from a range of languages,
including German, Romanian, Hungarian, Hindi, and Syrian Arabic. The
findings have implications for the study of number marking, partitivity,
kind reference, (in)definiteness marking, and other crucial issues in
linguistic theory.