This volume of papers grew outof a research project on "Cross-Linguistic
Quantification" originated by Emmon Bach, Angelika Kratzer and Barbara
Partee in 1987 at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and
supported by National Science Foundation Grant BNS 871999. The
publication also reflects directly or indirectly several other related
activ- ities. Bach, Kratzer, and Partee organized a two-evening
symposium on cross-linguistic quantification at the 1988 Annual Meeting
of the Linguistic Society of America in New Orleans (held without
financial support) in order to bring the project to the attention of the
linguistic community and solicit ideas and feedback from colleagues who
might share our concern for developing a broader typological basis for
research in semantics and a better integration of descriptive and
theoretical work in the area of quantification in particular. The same
trio organized a six-week workshop and open lecture series and related
one-day confer- ence on the same topic at the 1989 LSA Linguistic
Institute at the University of Arizona in Tucson, supported by a
supplementary grant, NSF grant BNS-8811250, and Partee offered a seminar
on the same topic as part of the Institute course offerings. Eloise
Jelinek, who served as a consultant on the principal grant and was a
participant in the LSA symposium and the Arizona workshops, joined the
group of editors for this volume in 1989.